


Angel in the Streets

by LuckyDragon



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angels, Angst, BAMF Chloe Decker, BAMF Lucifer, Blessings, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Demons, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, God as an absentee but very involved character, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, Heaven, Hell, Humor, Investigations, Los Angeles, Miracles, POV Chloe Decker, POV Lucifer, Parallel Journeys, Post Season 4, Reunions, Road Trips, Science, Sex, Smut, Souls, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Wingfic, brief depictions of torture, do not yeet the souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2020-10-25 08:14:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 60,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDragon/pseuds/LuckyDragon
Summary: Chloe has never been one to give up without a fight, and she will do whatever it takes to find a way to bring Lucifer back from Hell. Meanwhile, in Hell, Lucifer too searches for a way out, one that won’t leave Earth and all of his loved ones defenseless. The two of them plan to find their way back to each other…...but when we make plans, God laughs.





	1. Cut Off

**Author's Note:**

> I owe many thanks to my betas! Thank you [CJ_R](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJ_R/pseuds/CJ_R) for the extremely deep and insightful content edits, and to [sutekinanijinoiro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutekinanijinoiro) for being AWESOME at typo smashing. And another thank you to [Rayban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rayban/profile), aka R, for what I'm calling "reaction-beta." You have each helped to make this a better fic, and I'm so grateful. 
> 
> Heads up to readers: I intend to add more content tags and character tags as I post more chapters and the story progresses. I'm really hoping readers will want to join for the serialization - I will be posting _at least_ once a week as chapters get polished. 
> 
> <strike>Also, I have this story 95% drafted, so please consider it safe to read without fear of author abandonment!</strike>  
Update: It's now 100% drafted, WOO!

Chloe cut off her hair.

It didn’t happen immediately after Lucifer left. No, it happened many months later. 

The first few days after he left were all a blur of crisis management at work. That night at the Mayan, before her world had turned the rest of the way upside down, Chloe and the others present had been forced to make adjustments to the scene. When the details were all addressed, her friends had left, and Chloe had called it in: thirty-two bodies found dead. The whole incident was eventually deemed a “mass cult suicide” for lack of any reasonable explanation. Father Kinley, already established as a deranged zealot, was assumed to be the cult leader. 

As for the demon-possessed woman whom Chloe herself had shot, fortunately the body had been long dead before she ever fired a shot, as forensics was able to show. A mind struggling to process a scene straight from a horror film could play tricks on someone, couldn’t it? She was forced to take a psych evaluation for her trouble. 

Eventually, the case closed, although the way that it closed on lies and false assumptions left a bitter taste in her mouth. Chloe knew the truth but was helpless and unable to share it. No one would have believed her. She could practically hear Lucifer’s teasing: “Well, now you have a little taste of how _ I’ve _ felt all this time, Detective.” The echo of his voice in her mind caused her chin to tremble and her brow to wrinkle whenever the thought occurred to her, which it did frequently as she dealt with the aftermath of the demonic crime. However, she always saved the tears for when she was at home. 

Telling Trixie was one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life. She was barely able to get the words out. 

“Lucifer really might not ever come back?” her daughter had whispered, devastation in her dark eyes. 

“It’s...it’s not looking likely, sweetie,” Chloe said. 

“But I didn’t get to say goodbye!” Trixie’s voice broke on the last word, and she started crying, so Chloe let herself go as well. They cried together on the couch, wrapped up together as tightly as possible. 

A half an hour later, when Chloe thought Trixie had fallen asleep in her arms, her daughter asked quietly, “He had to go back to Hell, didn’t he?” 

A broken whimper escaped Chloe’s sore, scratchy voice. “Yeah, he did,” she said on a painful breath. And she was so, so grateful for her tiny, wise daughter. 

Two weeks passed like that in a hazy muddle of long hours at work fighting to keep the loss at bay, accompanied by long hours at home choking on grief that felt like claws in her throat and stomach. 

Gradually, the tears slowed down. 

Then Chloe got to work. 

She resumed her religious research, which she’d abandoned ever since she’d realized it was taking her down the wrong path. Library books and printouts from various websites started to litter her home. On her second foray into learning about Heaven, Hell, and all of the significant celestial parties in creation, her studies and Google searches pointed not to “the devil on Earth” or “damnation,” but instead to “what is hell,” “redemption,” “controlling demons,” and “God’s plan,” among many others. However, she also had access to more reliable sources of information. 

She visited Amenadiel and Linda. And at the last minute, she also thought to bring a gift for Charlie — a floppy blue ragdoll bunny. 

They greeted her warmly and gently when she arrived, she gave them the gift, and they sat at Linda’s table to talk. 

Amenadiel didn’t hesitate to get to the heart of the matter. “Chloe, I just want to tell you, I can’t say how sorry I am that things turned out the way they did.”

Chloe shook her head, though. “You don’t have to apologize for anything, Amenadiel. You didn’t give the demons a free ride straight to Earth. Pretty sure that was Eve.” She paused, glancing at Charlie being cuddled in Linda’s arms. “And you all suffered for it, too.” 

Linda cast a loving gaze down at her son. “It could have been so much worse. And it would have been if it weren’t for Lucifer.” 

Chloe was proud of herself. The sound of his name didn’t make her eyes burn or her throat close. “About that...I, well, is there anything…” she swallowed, looking at Amenadiel. 

Amenadiel nodded slowly in understanding. “I want you to know that as soon as I found out that he’d left, I flew down to Hell after him. I wanted to talk to him, find out what he’s planning. But he’d locked the gates, Chloe. I’ve tried, more than once, but I can’t even get in.”

Her heart felt cold, leaden, and the sympathetic looks from Amenadiel and Linda told her that it must have shown on her face. 

She nodded a few times. “Thank you for trying.” 

Amenadiel gave her a tight, regretful smile. “I’ll keep trying. And if there’s anything I can do to help you, I’m here for you, Chloe. We both are. I understand how much your friendship, your partnership, with Lucifer meant to you.”

_ No, you probably don’t, _ Chloe thought, and the realization struck her as funny. The idea that someone else could grasp the full weight of her emotions seemed ludicrous. 

“I have some questions, actually,” she said, looking straight into Amenadiel’s eyes. “And not just for you.” She turned her imploring gaze to Linda next. “I need to know more because I think there has to be another way.”

“I’ll help in any way that I can,” Linda said, “but a lot of this is far, far outside of my expertise.” 

Amenadiel heaved a slow sigh. “I’ll answer any questions you have,” the angel said, but his eyes were troubled, and he hesitated before continuing. “I don’t want my brother to have to suffer to keep my son safe. But Chloe, before we start, you have to realize, this might be beyond _ anyone’s _power to fix.”

Chloe gave one jerky nod to acknowledge she’d heard him. “I realize that. But I like to explore all the angles. It’s what I do,” she said. Then she got out her notepad.

She left two hours later with several leads and ideas, but not before extracting a promise that she could follow up whenever she needed to.

After that, she tried to contact Maze. The demon proved difficult to get a hold of; she’d taken over Lux in Lucifer’s absence, but she was also continuing to hunt bounties on the side. Plus, their relationship was still finding its way back to a state of equilibrium ever since Chloe’s revelations about the truth, completely due to the detective’s own weaknesses. So Chloe settled for brusque text replies to her questions. Maze’s answers, although not elaborate in detail, at least helped. Chloe put a mental pin in that resource for further attention later in case her current leads ran dry. 

Days passed, then weeks. Chloe learned more about religions and the afterlife than she’d ever thought there was to know. 

Trixie was Chloe’s truest companion during that time. Her daughter kept her strong just by needing her to be a parent. Taking good care of Trixie required getting out of the house, fixing healthy meals, helping with homework, and reading bedtime stories. 

One night, roughly two months after losing her partner, Chloe sat down on the edge of Trixie’s bed. “So, what’s it going to be, monkey? More _ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, _ ” she held up the book in question, “or do we start on _ A Wind in the Door _?” She held up the other book. Then she wiggled them both in the air like jazz hands for good measure.

Trixie made a funny face as she considered her options, making Chloe smile. She admitted to herself, not for the first time, that her daughter’s charm was single-handedly preventing her heart from turning into stone.

“Beauty and the Beast,” Trixie said at last. 

Chloe snorted. “Okay. Not what I was expecting, but we can do that.” She crawled into bed beside Trixie, and the child wrapped an arm around her mother and laid her dark head on her shoulder. 

Chloe didn’t need a book for this bedtime story. She stroked Trixie’s hair and thought about how to start.

“Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince. Although in his heart, he was a kind and loyal man, he was also very impulsive and rebellious….”

* * *

Lucifer cut off Dromos’s feet. All four of them. Slowly, using Hell-forged blades. He bound the demon to the floor of Hell with chains that pierced through muscles and tendons. Then he left Dromos and the rebels who had followed him in the care of his second-best torturer, Baalic, with promises of frequent visits. Lucifer had received reports that Baalic had fought to keep many of his fellow demons from engaging in possession.

What Dromos really deserved was one-on-one time with Mazikeen, but unfortunately for Lucifer his very best torturer had established deep roots in her life on Earth. 

He’d just have to make do without, as he always did. 

So he ensured punishment for those who had wronged him and had dragged him unwillingly back to his own prison. And by granting Baalic the honor of torturing the ringleader and rebels who had dared to mutiny against the King of Hell, Lucifer ensured that their suffering might come close to the suffering that they had caused him. 

Kinley he observed for a long, long time in the priest’s personal room in Hell. He watched over and over again as the supposedly holy man of God caused the unleashing of Hell on Earth by his own hands, his own cruelty and selfishness. Horrific demons of his imagination tortured and devoured him time and again, always in new and unique ways. Kinley’s zealous intentions to save the entire world turned to blood, ash, and destruction, day in and day out. 

Lucifer observed him for years, but he couldn’t find any way to make the man’s personal Hell any worse. It was perfect already. He couldn’t even reveal himself to Kinley, because that, ironically, could be the very thing that would ease his guilt — the knowledge that Lucifer was in Hell and Kinley had succeeded in his mission. 

Eventually he turned away from the priest’s waking nightmares. 

He strode down the long, colorless corridor. The sounds of his shoes echoed. Eventually, he came across a demon and caught her by the arm. 

“Fancy yourself a promotion?” he asked.

The demon, a lesser creature, nodded in mute awe at having been accosted by her king. 

“Good. From now on you have one job only. I need information.” 

* * *

Chloe tapped her pen against her notepad. “So what I still don’t understand is why demons innately require a celestial to rule them.”

On the floor next to them, Linda sat next to Charlie. The baby, advancing much more rapidly than a normal human child, was using the doctor’s hands to hold himself upright as he practiced walking. He was barely six months old.

Amenadiel rubbed his forehead, clearly worn out from the questioning, and leaned back on the couch. “We’ve been over this, Chloe, repeatedly. That’s just the way Father set things up. Without a celestial around to govern Hell, things go to, well, Hell.” He grimaced. “It happens pretty quickly in fact. In relative terms of time, that is.” 

Chloe flipped back a page in her notepad and opened her mouth to ask another question, but Amenadiel held up a hand to stall her. 

“Maybe we should stop here for today,” Amenadiel said gently. “You should go home and get some rest.”

“I really think I’m onto something here, though,” she argued, but the look on his face made her hesitate. “Y’know, maybe you’re right. I really should go pick up Trix.” She rose, and Amenadiel did as well. “Thank you, as usual, for all of your help. Um, is next Saturday okay to pick up where we left off?” 

Linda interjected from her seated position on the floor, looking up at Chloe. “Or maybe you should, I don’t know, take a few weeks off. Take a break and do something different for a change. Go somewhere for the weekend. Or for a few weekends.” 

Chloe smiled and shook her head. “I’d really rather stay on this. I have a couple of avenues that are proving to be really strong leads.”

“Chloe, what I’m trying to say is that I’m worried about you,” Linda continued. “You’ve been, how do I put this? You’ve been laser focused on this one problem for so long now. I know that grief isn’t a linear process, but I just feel like you’re locking yourself into this mode where you can’t move on.” Linda’s gaze turned pitying. “And you’ve lost weight, Chloe. I just want to see you take better care of yourself. Let yourself heal." 

Inside her chest, her heart shivered. The ice around her core cut into the muscle, made it shake.

_ Find your center, Chloe. You know how to do this. Take on the role and become it. Be what the audience needs. _

She gave her audience a warm smile even though she felt frozen on the inside. “I think...I think you’re right, Linda. I’ve been going at this so hard that I haven’t let myself...grieve.” She made her voice quaver intentionally. “I just can’t believe he’s gone for good.” 

“Oh, Chloe,” Amenadiel said, and he held out his arms. She went into the embrace willingly, taking a moment to hide her face as she pressed her thumb and index fingers against her eyes to help them start watering. 

Linda got up, hefting Charlie onto one hip, and put an arm around Chloe as well. 

She let her friends comfort her because it was what they needed. 

After a few moments, Chloe sniffled loudly and pulled away. “Thank you both,” she mumbled, pulling a tissue out of her pocket and swiping at her eyes with it. “You’ve been so patient with me. I’ve taken so much of your time.” 

Linda shook her head with a fond smile. “It’s perfectly understandable, Chloe. We all go at our own pace.” 

Chloe nodded slowly and took a deep breath, putting on a brave face. “I really should go pick up Trixie now. And I’m going to take your advice, maybe even get away for awhile. Maybe, I don’t know, in a few weeks we could all go out to dinner together, Trixie too, and absolutely no questions other than fun ones. If that’d be okay?” she asked with what she hoped was the appropriate amount of uncertainty. 

“That’d be wonderful,” Amenadiel said with one of his blinding smiles. 

After that, Chloe departed without any more fuss. The moment she was out the door, the role melted away, and she stalked to her car. 

Inside her veins, the ice started to crack. 

A while later, she arrived at Lux. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the place was mostly empty, save for a security guard, bartender, demon, and little girl. 

She found Trixie hanging upside down over Maze’s back, both of her knees hooked over one of the demon’s shoulders. Maze was walking around, one hand holding Trixie up, the other hand putting the bar in order. 

“Mom! Mom, check it out. I’m watching Maze’s back for her,” Trixie shouted with glee as Chloe descended the stairs. 

“I was going to ask how the sleepover went, but it clearly looks like you both had a good time,” Chloe said with a smile for her red-faced daughter. 

“Thanks for letting me borrow your little human, Decker,” Maze said. She came around from behind the bar. 

“No, no! Thank you for watching her.” 

Maze knelt down and set Trixie back on her feet. The young girl had to shake her ruffled hair back into place.

“Mom, can we get ice cream on the way — whoa, head rush,” Trixie said quickly, putting a hand to her head. 

“Yeah, ice cream is always good for monkeys on hot days,” Chloe replied. “Got your things together?” 

“Yep!” She pulled her pink-camo backpack off a bar stool and came back to Chloe’s side. 

Chloe smiled at Mazikeen. “Thanks again. Oh, and um, about that text I sent you, I — “

“I’m not answering any more of your stupid questions, Decker,” Maze replied in a bland, blunt tone. “They’re pointless, and there’s nothing you can do. You’re only human, so you need to _ stop _poking into this. Because this kind of stuff? Sometimes pokes back. Hard. I went with it to humor you, but now you need to cut it out.” The demon then turned and walked away. 

The ice around Chloe’s heart chipped and shattered.

“Come on, Mom.” Trixie tugged on her hand. “Let’s go.” 

Chloe was mostly silent on the route to the ice cream parlor, lost in her thoughts, and Trixie seemed to sense that something was wrong and settled for staring out the window. 

By the time they arrived back at their apartment, Chloe felt as though she had slipped all the way back into those first few days of...after. Her mind was nothing more than a mess of static, noisy with frustration and helplessness. 

“Mom? Mommy?” 

Chloe blinked. She was sitting on the couch, and Trixie was kneeling on the cushion beside her, looking at her earnestly. When had she sat down? She couldn’t remember.

“Mom, are you okay?” Trixie asked. 

“No, honey, not really,” she admitted, putting a hand on her daughter’s soft cheek. Lately the girl’s baby-soft roundness had been slowly melting away, revealing more and more of the adult she would grow into. “I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now, to tell you the truth. All the research I’ve been doing? Amenadiel and Linda told me this morning that they think I should give it up. And Maze thinks so, too.” 

Trixie shook her head. “Maze and I talked about it. She wants Lucifer back, too. She just thinks that because we’re human, we’re not strong enough. Maze says we should just sit back and wait to see what happens.” 

Something hot took hold inside of her. Hot and painful.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Forcefully, she pulled herself out of the spiral and focused on parenting. “And what do _ you _ think? I’m sure you have opinions about this, ‘cause you always, _ always _have opinions.” 

“Of course I do!” Trixie smiled up at her mother briefly, but then the little girl thought in silence for a few moments. “I think you need to ask yourself the Lucifer question.” 

Chloe felt baffled. “The Lucifer question? What’s that?”

“You know. _ The question._” Trixie pulled away from their cuddling so she could look straight at Chloe. “What do you desire more than anything else in the world?” 

The molten hot core that settled in her heart started to spark. Tiny flames began to flicker in her veins. 

“I want to drag Lucifer out of Hell. I want him to know that I won’t ever abandon him or give up on him. And after I haul him back to Los Angeles, I want to just absolutely _ yell _at him for leaving.” She laughed, and it was a messy sort of laugh. Only then did she realize her face was wet with tears. “And then I’ll probably want to hug him for about a month without letting go.” 

Trixie gave her a small smile and a big nod. “So, do that. I don’t want to give up, either.” 

_ Best logic in the world, _ Chloe thought. She dragged Trixie back to her side to hug her tightly. “What would I ever do without you, Trix? You’re my own little guardian angel.” 

They spent the rest of the day watching silly movies together.

That night, however, after putting Trixie to bed, Chloe was left alone to her thoughts, and her fears and insecurities came rushing back. What was she doing? Was there really any hope? What could one puny human do to hold back Hell itself? 

That was when the anger finally set in. 

How dare anyone try to stop her? The people in her life were treating her as though she was in the wrong. But wasn’t there something fundamentally wrong with sacrificing Lucifer for their safety? They’d been supportive of Chloe’s goals at first, yet now they were just going to give up because a little time had gone by. Ridiculous. _ Every cold case is still a case. Every puzzle has a solution, _she thought. 

And how dare Lucifer leave at _ just _ the moment when Chloe finally managed to get her shit together? She’d fought long and hard to grow into a person who would be able to fully and completely accept him, and then in a matter of moments, he’d vanished. Had he, too, thought she could just _ move on _ after that?

No. No, no, no. 

She really was going to give him a piece of her mind the next time she saw him. 

The rest of the tribe wanted her to move on? Fine. She was an actress. She could make them believe they’d convinced her to do just that, and meanwhile she’d stay on task. 

Mind made up, she scrambled to her feet, found a pair of scissors, and went to stand in front of the bathroom mirror. 

She stared at her reflection. “Lucifer, wherever in Hell you are, I just want you to know two things. First, I’m really, really mad at you. I mean, I am _ so _ pissed off. You’ve driven me nuts a million times, but this one tops them all. We should have talked this through. I could have helped. I _ know _I could have.”

Chloe glanced at the scissors in her hands. “And two? I’m not vain about a lot of things but I — it’s silly, but I really love my hair. So you’d better get back here and tell me you want me to grow it out again, because I’m _ not going to unless you tell me so to my face._” 

Then Chloe opened the scissors and began to cut off her hair all the way up to her chin. The slow _ skreet _ sound of the slicing scissors echoed in the small bathroom. _ Skreet, snick, skreet, snick _ went the blades as she repeated the process again and again.

Her locks fell to the floor like feathers. 


	2. Perfect Heart Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Earth, Chloe tackles a new case.
> 
> In Hell, Lucifer doles out punishments. 
> 
> Despite the familiarity of their routines, neither one is doing particularly well without the other.

When Chloe went back to work on Monday, her sudden bob haircut got a lot of attention. Dan actually did a double-take. 

“Wow, new look. Wasn’t expecting that,” Dan said. “It’s nice. Any particular reason for the cut?”

“Just thought I’d try something new,” Chloe replied casually. 

Dan tapped her desk thoughtfully. “Hey, you doing okay? I mean, in general.” 

Chloe smiled. “Everything’s fine."

Ella walked into the office behind Dan. “Morning Dan, morning Chloe!” Three steps later the young scientist paused and turned around with wide eyes. “Hold. The. Phone. Girl, you look fantastic! Give me a twirl so I can see the whole style!” 

Thank goodness for Ella. She dispelled the specter of awkwardness with pure sunshine. Chloe spent a few minutes basking in the rays, blushing as she absorbed the compliments, and meanwhile her ex-husband shook his head and wandered back to his own desk. 

After Chloe finally convinced Ella to stop singing her praises, the younger woman smiled and casually leaned against Chloe’s desk. “So, what inspired the dramatic cut? There’s gotta be something behind this, because I tell ya, before today, I thought there were three certain things in this world: death, taxes, and _ your _long hair.” 

Chloe let out a huff of laughter. “There wasn’t really just one reason. I guess it was a combination of a lot of things.” Suddenly, she realized how much better she felt. She was lighter, freer. 

Ella gave her a big grin. “Hey, there’s the smile I’ve been waiting for. I haven’t seen a real one from you in a long time. Looks like a change of pace was exactly what you needed.” 

Chloe’s smile fell away. “Not you, too,” she muttered.

“What? What’d I say? Is something wrong?”

Chloe grimaced. “Some people have just been,” she made a helpless gesture, “telling me to, you know, move on. And quite frankly, I don’t want to hear about it anymore.” Her statement came out with more heat than she’d meant it to. 

“Whoa, wait, I’m not even sure what you’re talking about,” Ella said, hands up in the air in a placating motion. “What do you mean move on...Ooh, I get it. Yeah, no, not where I was going with that. I’m just glad you’re letting yourself smile again. You mean people were telling you to move on from Lucifer? I mean, come on, have they _ met _you? Besides, I haven’t even moved on. I keep expecting him to walk in at any time, doin’ his whole Devil schtick.” Ella took Chloe’s wrists and pulled her out of her chair. “Come here, bring it in.” 

The small latina wrapped arms tightly around Chloe, and Chloe gave her a gentle hug and pat in return. 

“Thanks, Ella,” she said.

The other woman slowly released her. “Any time. And don’t give up. Ya just gotta have faith. You trust Lucifer, right? He’ll be back. Mega rude of him not to stay in touch, but he be like that sometimes.” She whispered the last few words as though it were a secret.

“I do trust him, Ella,” Chloe replied. “But sitting around and just believing he’ll be back while doing nothing? Not my style.” 

“Right. I see what you’re getting at. ‘Faith without works is dead’ and all that. That’s you all over. So keep hunting down his Armani-clad tush like I know you’ve been doing when you think I’m not looking. I mean, it’s hilarious that you think I don’t notice stuff. You can try to hide it if you want, but I’m still gonna see it all.”

Chloe smiled another genuine smile. “Ella, that was exactly what I needed to hear. I really appreciate it. And now we’d both better get to work.” 

“Good call. Those DNA samples aren’t going to test themselves.”

Ella started to walk away, but before Chloe could get settled back in her chair, Lieutenant Nobbs (and wouldn’t Lucifer have had a _ field day _ with that last name) approached and interrupted them both. 

“Lopez, put someone else on the DNA samples,” he ordered. “New body just dropped. Decker, you’re up.” He handed a folder to Chloe.

Chloe accepted the folder, relief washing over her. Lately she’d been hung out to dry, working on cold cases for months. She understood the many reasons for it, but that hadn’t made it any easier to swallow.

“Sure thing, boss! I’ll get my kit.” Ella bounded away to the lab, but not before giving Chloe an exaggerated wink and a big thumbs up. 

“I’ll get right on it,” Chloe said, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair. 

“Just a moment, Decker. It sounds like a fairly routine case, but just do your thing and be thorough anyway,” the lieutenant told her, his crow’s feet deepening as he narrowed his fuzzy gray brows. Then he continued in a quieter tone. “Look, I don’t like that you still don’t have a new partner, but the way things are, I can’t make anyone team up with you that isn’t willing. I want everything normal, by the books, and safe. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Chloe replied. 

Finally, something was starting to go right. 

* * *

Handy’s Alterations and Dry Cleaning was positioned in a bubble between neighborhoods; a little further south, and the area got rough, but the businesses and residences to the north were well-to-do.

Chloe parked across the street and approached the building. However, as she reached the police tape that stretched around the lamp posts in front of the building, she slowed. Something felt off to her, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. The flimsy tape rustled in the breeze, and she stared at it for a long moment, deeply confused. She had a strange feeling that she couldn’t get past the barrier. 

To her right, an officer lifted the tape and passed under it. A memory echoed for Chloe. In her mind’s eye, she could see an Armani-clad arm reaching for the tape to lift it for her, and she felt the ghost of a hand at the small of her back.

Chloe’s heart, which yesterday had felt so hot that it burned, began to cool and harden once more. Then she lifted the tape for herself and entered the building. 

Inside, the body of a forty-something woman lay on the floor behind the front counter. Ella crouched beside the corpse, camera in hand. 

“What do you have for me, Ella?” she asked. 

Ella finished snapping another picture before she replied. “Meet Georgia Watson. Or, as I like to call her, Ultra Straightforward Vic. She works here at the store, or at least she did before she died of a single, close-range gunshot to the chest. No signs of struggle, and the register is open and empty, which of course all points to a robbery gone wrong. However, I did just get here a few minutes before you, so I still need to look around.” 

Chloe stared at the wound on the woman’s chest.

Ella noticed her interest. “This was really precise,” she said, “but also close range so not too shocking. Still, it really is a perfect heart shot.” Then she looked up at Chloe with eager, excited puppy dog eyes. 

Chloe shook her head firmly. “Don’t do it.” 

“I’m totally gonna do it.” 

“Ella, no —” 

Elle broke into song, complete with a dramatic rocker face and an imaginary microphone in hand. “Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame! You give love a bad name, bad name!” 

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Time of death?” she asked. 

Ella gave a little cough. “Somewhere around fifteen to seventeen hours ago, soooo..." Ella looked at her watch. “Between five and seven o’clock last night.”

“A Sunday evening?” Chloe muttered. 

She walked back to the front door to see the hours of operation written on glass in white lettering. Next to “Sunday” was the word “Closed.” The glass was completely intact, as well, and the door jamb didn’t show any signs of damage other than a little peeling varnish. 

“They’re closed on Sundays,” Chloe told Ella as she returned to her side. “And no sign of forced entry on the front door. Any details about the back door?” 

“Haven’t gotten there yet.” Ella snapped another photo. “I’ll do that in just a sec.”

“Thanks, Ella,” Chloe said. “Do you know who found the body?” 

Ella nodded her head to where an officer was talking to a man next to a rack full of suits and dresses in plastic bags. 

Chloe went up to them, and the officer gave her a nod and stepped away. She looked at the man in question, guessing him to be in his mid- to late twenties. He had brown hair and an average build. His eyes were wide with apparent shock. 

Chloe introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Detective Chloe Decker with the LAPD. And you are…?” 

“Doug Kendle. I, uh, work here. I’m the assistant manager.” 

“Mr. Kendle, can you tell me about how you found the body this morning, starting from when you arrived?” 

Doug nodded jerkily. “I came in early because I was opening shop today. When I got here, the first thing I noticed was that the back door was unlocked, which was bizarre. Then I started the coffee pot in the breakroom at the back, and I went to the office, and it was just a mess. Papers everywhere. The safe was still locked, but the petty cash drawer was empty. I started to freak out because I knew we’d been robbed. I came up to check the front, to see whether anything else was missing, and that’s when I found Georgia. She was already dead. There wasn’t anything I could do.” 

Chloe nodded sympathetically. “That must have been difficult.” 

Doug winced. “Yeah. She only started working here about three months ago, but she was really easy to get along with, you know? She didn’t deserve that.” 

Chloe agreed. No one deserved that. “Can you tell me where you were last night starting around five o’clock last night?” 

Doug nodded, looking over Chloe’s shoulder. “I was on a date with Mandy.” He pointed at a short, young woman with dark blonde hair on the other side of the room.

“I’d also like to know, have you noticed anything else missing besides cash? Anything valuable?”

Doug looked around at clothes on hangers all around the business, draped in plastic. “Would you believe I didn’t even think of that yet? It’s really hard to say. We have so much clothing, some of it pricey stuff, but I couldn’t possibly tell you whether anything’s missing without doing a full inventory check. Or if, say, a customer comes along and wants her Dior dress back and we don’t have it anymore.”

Chloe filed all of that away mentally for later consideration. She looked at the rack behind Doug. It was mostly full of common clothing, but there, just a little apart from the others, was a women’s Chanel dress and jacket set. She tore her eyes away and looked back at Doug. “Let me know about anything you discover is missing. Also, can you tell me more about Georgia Watson? What was her job here? Was she in any kind of trouble, or did she hang out with any questionable people?” 

“Georgia was the new head seamstress. She got hired on for her experience. She does a lot of training, and she is, _ was, _ really talented. She didn’t have any rough connections that I knew of, if that’s what you’re asking. She was single. Er, I think she told me she was divorced, but that it happened a long time ago, maybe ten years.” 

Chloe considered new possibilities and ruled out others. Then she asked the question that was burning hotly on her tongue. “Did Ms. Watson often come in on the weekends? And did she have a key to the building?”

Doug blinked, apparently befuddled by her question. “She had a key, but working on the weekends? No. Wait, it’s Monday, isn’t it?” Doug frowned as he processed that. “What was she doing here on a Sunday?” 

“There are a lot of possibilities, Mr. Kendle. That’s something I’m going to work on figuring out.”

She asked him a few more questions until Ella came up and tapped her on the shoulder. “Owner’s here,” the young scientist said. “Bob Hansen. Oh, and no sign of forced entry on the back door.”

Chloe excused herself and followed Ella deeper into the shop. She saw that a few other people who appeared to be employees were lingering toward the back, among tables and racks, all of them reluctant to get near the body. Uniformed officers were interviewing them. Meanwhile, the detective and scientist approached a middle-aged, balding man who stood near an interior door. The frosted glass window on the door was broken, and bright yellow markers surrounded the glass on the floor just inside the office. 

Ella gave a small wave and returned to her investigation and documentation process.

“Mr. Hansen? I’m Detective Decker. I need to ask you a few questions.” 

“Of course. Anything I can do to help.”

“First of all, do you have any idea about why Georgia was here last night?” 

Bob shrugged and shook his head. “She must have forgotten something. Or maybe she was making up some time. I let her go a couple hours early on Friday because she wasn’t feeling well.”

Chloe knew very well that simple things like that could easily put someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Do you have any history of robberies here at your store?” 

The man shook his head, and his loose cheeks wobbled a bit as he did so. “No, none. I opened this place three years ago and haven’t had a single incident.” 

“What about anyone making threats to your business? Have any enemies that might try to cause you trouble?”

Bob’s eyes widened. “You mean you think this could be something other than a routine robbery? My goodness, that’s...well, that’s even more terrifying than a random stick up.”

Chloe held up a calming hand. “I just have to consider all possible angles. I assure you that it’s standard procedure. I’d like to review your security footage next. Can you bring it up for me?” Chloe pointed at a couple of cameras in different corners, both of which had blinking red lights. 

“Oh. Sorry, but there’s no recording. Those are actually just dummy cameras. They make a good deterrent.” 

Chloe frowned. That was a gigantic setback. “I’ll need you to give me a list of everyone who had a key to the building. And can you tell me where you were last night, Mr. Hansen, from five o’clock onward?” 

At this question, he seemed startled. “I was at home with my wife. We had dinner together. It was just a quiet Sunday. I fail to see how asking me that is going to help you find the scum responsible for robbing me and killing the best seamstress I ever had.” 

The detective, however, remained unruffled. “As I said, these are all normal questions for any homicide investigation.”

Bob made a sympathetic face. “You’re right. That was uncalled for. It’s just so horrible. It’s like walking into a nightmare when I thought it was going to be a normal day.” 

Chloe’s world had turned upside down so often in the past few years that she could understand where he was coming from. 

She asked Bob Hansen several more questions before moving on to the next employee. Each individual painted a similar picture of the victim: an average person, very soft-hearted. She belonged to a knitting circle where she made blankets for terminally ill children. 

Hearing that had made Chloe’s icy heart shudder in an attempt at pain. 

A distant memory echoed in her mind as if from a long way off. _ “...someone who knows that every crime scene breaks your heart even though you’d never admit it…” _

She angrily shut down the memory before it could get any further.

Several hours later, Chloe made her way back to the precinct. She then dove into the case, looking into local gang activity, pulling records on other robberies and crimes in the vicinity, and building profiles for all of the employees. More and more papers came to litter her desk, each one like a piece of a puzzle that she had to assemble into a coherent picture.

Georgia Watson, the victim. Age forty-two. Head seamstress. Divorced, single, no children. Neither wealthy nor poor. No criminal record or evidence of criminal associations. 

Bob Hansen. Owner. Age fifty-three. Successful serial entrepreneur specializing in opening service-industry businesses and selling them. Father of two grown sons, married to wife Tracy. Hunter, dog breeder, and member of the board of directors for a small local food bank. No criminal history worse than a few speeding tickets. 

Doug Kendle. Assistant manager. Age twenty-six. Started working at the shop about one year ago. History of alcoholism and a couple of bar fights. Spent a month in a rehabilitation facility two years prior, with no apparent relapse since that time. 

Mandy Beck. Alterations assistant. Age twenty-two. Was in the foster care system starting at age thirteen, fell off the radar as a runaway for a while, but popped back up two months ago when she began working at the shop. Was trained by Georgia.

Jorge Vasquez, Manager. Jenny Stone, Associate. Joshua Lee, Associate. 

That was it, though. The number of employees seemed low to her for such a business. Perhaps Handy’s had recently experienced some turnover. 

“Chloe!” 

She jumped just a little in her seat. “Dan! Oh my God, you scared me.”

Dan gave her a confused smile. “I called your name three times. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just got lost in this case, I guess. What can I do for you?”

“I was just about to leave and pick up Trixie from soccer practice. Before I go, I wanted to make sure you got dinner. Have you eaten?”

Chloe looked at the clock. It was after seven. “Wow. No, I guess it slipped my mind. I’ll pick up something on the way home.”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “You are going home soon, right?” 

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, stretching her back with a noisy pop. “Yeah, I’ll go in just a few. It’s just there’s something about this case that feels off. I feel like I’m missing something.” 

“The robbery?” Dan glanced at his watch and then leaned a hip against her desk. “I’ve got five minutes. Walk me through it.” 

She broke it down for him, and he listened attentively. 

Dan then fed the most likely scenario back to her as he’d heard it from her own lips. “So, it’s Sunday late afternoon. The vic is alone and approaches the store from the back. Our perp is there outside the store and sees her. He either holds her up when he sees her getting out her keys, or he follows her into the store and then holds her up. Either way, he encounters her and ends up pulling his gun on her. He leads her to the front and makes her open the register, but something happens that makes him nervous, so he shoots her. He cleans out the register and petty cash and makes a run for it.”

Chloe made a noise of dissatisfaction. It didn’t sit right. 

“Any street cams?” Dan asked. 

“Nothing. It’s a big blind spot.” 

“It’ll come to you. Just stick with it.” Dan tapped her desk and rose. “I have to go, but don’t give up.” He started walking away but shouted over his shoulder. “And remember to eat!” 

Chloe rolled her eyes and looked down at her files, trying to fit the pieces together. She ran her hand through her hair and was surprised when it come up short. Instead of running her hand through long tresses, she found only short locks. 

It made her clench her fist so tightly that she could feel her fingernails biting into her skin. She needed her partner. He would have had insights, but he was gone. He’d chosen to leave her. He was so much _ more _ than human, more than _ Chloe._ How could she have ever hoped to hold on to him? 

She steeled herself and looked down at the files again.

The information needed a fresh perspective. “What would you think if you were here?” she whispered.

* * *

“I think that’s enough for now,” Lucifer said from his seated position, holding up one hand. 

Baalic let the tail of his whip fall to the ground for the first time in...Lucifer didn’t know how long. The King of Hell had lost track of time again, his mind wandering. 

As soon as the punishment stopped, Dromos sagged in his restraints, barely conscious. Shards of glass and rock glittered in the thick red wounds all over his body. The demon had lost his voice hours ago. 

They occupied a large, circular chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Dromos knelt in the center, bound. Baalic had tied the rebel between two metal columns using hell-forged chains. Lucifer had at one point considered taking Dromos’s hands as well as his feet, but hands made restraints so much easier. 

Besides, removing his feet had been a clear message: Demons tread nowhere without their master’s permission. 

Around the outer perimeter of the room were the demons who had followed Dromos — all restrained to the walls, all wounded. Baalic’s underlings prowled among them, dealing occasional strikes. 

“Baalic, you and your followers can go,” Lucifer said, rising from his seat near the edge of the room. “The next part is going to be unpleasant even for you.” With a roll of his shoulders, he unfurled his wings. They glimmered even in the dark bowels of hell, surrounded by blood, pain, and the oppressive fog of malevolence. Lucifer adjusted the cuffs of his dark leather suit. 

Baalic narrowed his eyes, squinting. “Yes, my king,” the demon prince bowed. He and his minions departed quickly. The thick, metal door shut with a clang behind the last one. 

Lucifer prowled around to Dromos’s front. He lifted the demon’s head by his muzzle. “Do you know what today is?” 

Dromos moved his mouth slightly but couldn’t make a sound. 

“Forgot, did you? Couldn’t be bothered to get me a gift? Perfectly all right. I didn’t forget _ you, _ not even for a second.” 

He dropped Dromos’s face, and the fiend’s head fell, lolling between his shoulders. 

Lucifer strode back behind Dromos, admiring his wounds for a moment. Then he casually tucked his hands in his pockets, lifted his wings high over his head...

...and he brought Chloe’s image to the forefront of his mind, the image he normally spent all of his energy and waking moments trying to avoid. He thought of her smile. He thought of her arms around his chest and her face buried in his shoulder. He thought of the sweetest, purest kiss they shared at the beach accompanied by music of rolling waves. 

He thought of her tears as he’d said goodbye. 

As he thought of these things, light began to rise within him. He didn’t fight it, instead welcoming it for the first time in millennia. 

Lucifer began to shine. 

When the light struck Dromos’s wounds, the demon found his voice. His scream came first, and the other demons joined in barely a second later. 

Lucifer stood perfectly still in the midst of Hell, remembering everything that he had tried his damnedest not to think about for the past twenty-five years. 

“Happy silver anniversary, you bloody bastards,” Lucifer said with an agonized sneer. No one heard his words beneath the demonic howls of suffering.

* * *

Chloe slept poorly that night. She woke the next morning with half-remembered dreams. There’d been a placid lake in the mountains, and she’d been searching for something that belonged to her since childhood, although she didn’t know what or where it was. She also had a vague recollection that she’d seen her mom and dad sitting together at a table, smiling at each other first and then at her. However, she couldn’t recall anything else or remember how the fragments of dream memory might have connected. 

As she brushed her teeth, she stared at her hair cut, trying to get used to it. 

Dan had Trixie, so for lack of anything better to do, Chloe simply had breakfast and went to work early. 

At her desk, Chloe pored over the case. Around midday, Ella delivered her forensics report, but it offered little in the way of new insights. 

“What were you doing there, Georgia?” Chloe muttered to herself occasionally, but no answer came. 

_ “Maybe she couldn’t resist trying on the goods,” _ the echo of Lucifer’s voice whispered from the back of Chloe’s mind. _ “I bet she loved slipping into a naughty little Versace piece when no one else was around.” _

_ So, what, you think she had a thing for trying on other people’s clothes? _ Chloe fired back inside her head. 

_ “Of course! Everyone has their kinks, Detective, and I’m sure Miss Watson simply couldn’t help herself.” _

_ Yeah, well, you’re not any help at all, so shut up, _ Chloe thought bitterly. 

And then her mind was quiet. She instantly regretted the inner silence. _ Don’t go. _

“Detective?” 

Chloe opened her eyes and snapped her head up. One of the newer recruits, Manuel, was looking at her. “Yes?” 

“Jake told me to tell you that there’s just been a robbery at gunpoint about a mile from where your dry cleaner case is located. Nobody’s hurt, and the perp’s already in custody at the scene.” Manuel smiled. “It was the bad guy’s unlucky day. Duvall and Klein were on patrol in the area, and they took him down as he tried to walk out of a pizzeria with a bag of cash.” Manuel laughed.

Chloe summoned a smile for him. She rose from her seat. “Unlucky for him, lucky for us. Ping me the address, would you? I’ll head over right away.” 

“You got it,” he replied before departing. 

Chloe glanced at her phone before leaving. How had it gotten to be nearly five o’clock already? 

When she arrived on the scene, the perp was sitting, both hands handcuffed around a bike rack behind him, two officers hovering over him. She spotted Officer Jake Duvall by his squad car and went to talk with him. 

He spotted her as she approached. “Hey, Decker, glad you could finally make it. I was just about to pack up my perp and go.” He looked over her shoulder and around her but then shrugged. “He still not back? Eh, too bad. Liked that guy. Anyway, thought you might be interested in this one.”

Chloe felt a flare of angry heat inside her but shoved it back inside the ice. “I am very interested. First of all in the guy and secondly in his gun.” 

“Our guy’s name is Reggie McLeary. Kid’s just nineteen, and the little punk thought today would be a good idea to hold up a pizza clerk. Apparently it was supposed to be his initiation into a gang. The dipshit used this.” Jake Duvall held up a Glock in a sealed plastic bag. 

“Damn.” Chloe sighed. “That’s not the gun I’m after. I’m looking for a revolver and .38 Specials.” 

Duvall shrugged. “Maybe he has another. You’re welcome to interview him here or back at the station. Or both. No skin off my back.”

“No time like the present,” Chloe said.

The interview, however, turned out to be even more of a dead end than the gun. Reggie had an alibi for Sunday evening; he’d been at a popular arcade with friends. Chloe would have to follow up on it, but it seemed as though Reggie wasn’t her guy. 

She let Duvall know she was done and went back to her car. Her phone blinked on as she settled it in its holder, displaying the time. Five fifty-one. Handy’s would close at six. 

Spur-of-the-moment, she started her car and headed back to the scene of her latest case. She wanted to see who happened to be there and ask a few more questions about Georgia. Or ask the same questions and perhaps stir up new information.

The customer parking lot was empty when she arrived. Out of curiosity, she peeked around the back of the building before going in: Only one car, a rusted Ford, was parked behind the store. 

Chloe came around to the front and peered through the narrow window. Advertisements blocked most of her view, but she peeked between thin gaps. It appeared that nobody was manning the front desk, which struck her as odd. 

A check of the door handle proved that it wasn’t locked. She opened it slowly enough that the bells hanging from it didn’t jingle. 

Inside, the place seemed deserted, although Chloe knew someone had to be here. She peered around curiously. It was full of many nooks and crannies. The business was mostly a large room with a clear view to the back, with a couple rooms and storage areas off to the sides. Sewing tables, machines, and racks of clothing made the space behind the front counter appear to be crowded. 

“— home! You’re not supposed to —” 

“— dangerous. I’m not going to —“ 

The sounds of an argument were coming from the office. Craning her neck, she saw that the office door stood open and that the glass hadn’t been repaired yet. Chloe moved around the front desk and quietly advanced to get within hearing range. She stopped near a desk with a sewing machine and rumpled cloth on it and a full rack of dresses next to it.

“You shouldn’t even be here. Look, if Georgia was right, and I really think she was, then I don’t want you setting foot in this hellhole ever again.” 

Bingo. That sounded like Doug Kendle. 

“If Georgia was right, the same goes for _ you! _ We should just leave. C’mon, Doug. In fact, let’s get out of LA. Wherever you wanna go, doesn’t matter to me.” 

And Mandy Beck.

“You know I can’t do that, Mandy. Look, this won’t take me long. I can’t let it go. The thought of Katie — shit, all this time, I never even questioned it.” 

“It’s not your fault that Bob is the scum of the Earth, and you can’t save the world. You saw what happened to Georgia. It’s not _ safe. _” Mandy sounded downright panicked. 

“Look, all I need is some sort of evidence, and then I’m heading straight to the police department, got it?” 

“Why can’t you just go _ right now _and tell that detective what Georgia told you?”

“Look, who are they gonna believe? A guy with a history of arrests or the rich dude? I’ll give you a hint: It ain’t me. Cops don’t go after rich fuckers.” 

_ The hell I don’t, _ Chloe thought bitterly. 

“Fine. Good point,” Mandy grumbled. “Still not a good excuse to get killed for it.” 

“I’m not going to — look, I’m not gonna get killed, okay? And I’m not going to let Bob ruin any more lives.” 

“He’s not going to leave evidence lying around in an office that’s unlocked where anyone can waltz right in! ‘Oh, I’m human trafficking the dumbass homeless teenagers that I pay under the table before shipping them off’ isn’t gonna be written on his fucking white board!” 

_ Shit. _It all clicked into place in Chloe’s mind. The lack of security cameras despite high-value goods. The low number of official staff members. Georgia’s placement in the building at an odd time, likely doing exactly what Doug was doing right now — seeking evidence for an otherwise outlandish claim. 

Chloe heard feet shuffling. They were coming out of the office. She ducked down behind the sewing desk next to her.

“Mandy, I love you, but you have to realize that’s the only thing that’s kept you safe. Bob knows we’ve been dating from the start, and he must have realized I would ask questions if you disa— God, I don’t even want to think about it. But the other girls didn’t have any protection. Georgia tried to tell me on Friday that something seemed wrong, but I didn’t want to believe it. I should have believed her. I should have listened to her. If I had, maybe…”

“Shh! What’s that?” 

Chloe couldn’t detect anything right away, but then she heard the sound of a car door opening and closing, followed by the loud beep of a car alarm.

“Fuck, it’s Bob!” Mandy whisper-hissed. “Let’s go. We can get out the front door.” 

“No! He’ll know something’s wrong if he finds the place empty. You’re not supposed to be here. Just hide! _ Quick! _” 

The sound of scurrying feet. Then Chloe looked into startled green eyes as Mandy joined her behind the sewing desk. “You —” Chloe held up an urgent finger to her own lips, begging Mandy to be silent. 

Mandy slapped a hand over her mouth and huddled next to Chloe, looking at her with pleading eyes. Chloe held up a calming hand.

Behind them, Bob entered the building from the back door. “Doug, hey there,” said the owner. “I’d have thought you’d be out the door by now.”

“Almost! I just need to finish closing up, and I’ll be on my way.”

Even to Chloe, his tone sounded forced. She felt a drop of sweat roll down the back of her neck, and another slid along her spine into the small of her back. 

“No rush. I was hoping to talk to you, actually. I’ll just close up first, gimme a second.”

She heard the sound of feet on tile, moving toward the front, followed by a rustle and the sound of a metal _ snicking _ into place. Bob had locked the front door. Meanwhile, around the back she heard more walking — Doug was moving farther away from the position where he knew Mandy was hiding.

_ Good job, Doug, _ Chloe thought. _ Play it cool and stay smart. _

“You sure we can’t talk in the morning, Bob? I’m meeting someone for dinner.”

_ Nice recovery. Keep it up. _ Doug wasn’t an actor by any means, but the dinner comment was an excellent choice. 

Judging by the sound of footsteps, Bob had returned to the work area. “Won’t take long. I just wanted to see how you were doing with...all of this, you know?”

Doug gave a grunt. “It’s really just shitty. Poor Georgia.” 

“Yes, I agree. By the way,” Bob said, “what did you and Georgia talk about at the cafe on Friday?” 

“Cafe?” 

Doug’s voice wavered. Next to Chloe, Mandy bit into the side of one hand and covered her nose with the other to muffle her panicked breathing. 

“Yes. After I let her go early on Friday, you took a break. I saw you two together in the cafe down the street. She didn’t look so sick after all.” 

“She just wanted advice on a family problem she’d been having,” Doug said. “Trouble with her brother. Wanted a guy’s opinion.” 

Then came the metallic click of a revolver being cocked. Chloe quietly reached for her sidearm and pulled it out. Tears streaked Mandy’s face, but her eyes watched everything Chloe did in silent fear and perfect stillness. 

“Stop lying,” Bob said. “She told you that she was looking into my operation, didn’t she?”

“Whoa, Jesus! Bob, put that thing down! What are you even talking about?” 

“The operation. It’s just sales. That’s all it is. Movement of goods in exchange for money. The goods just happen to be people. I remove worthless trash from the street. It’s a valuable service. The girls get shelter and food, and all they have to do is sew, and our neighborhoods are better off for it. Everybody wins.”

_ You’re the trash, Bob, _ Chloe thought, her upper lip curling in disgust. If Lucifer were there with her, he would— she shut down that line of thinking. He wasn’t there. 

“You don’t have to do this, Bob. You don’t want to kill me. That’s just gonna make a bigger mess for you.” 

Adrenaline pumped through Chloe’s veins. She moved so that she crouched on the balls of her feet. Her heartbeat felt too fast. She needed to take the shot, but she was sitting blind. 

“It won’t. Because you’ll have killed yourself out of remorse for killing Georgia. A nice, tidy package for the LAPD.” 

Heartbeat. _ Take the shot. _ Heartbeat. 

Chloe rose and turned to face the two men all at once, pulling her firearm up. However, as she moved, she sighted Doug first and had to adjust to aim at Bob.

That split second was all Bob needed to take aim and fire at her. Even as she felt the lightning heat of pain, she got off one round of her own and saw that it barely grazed him. 

Chloe fell back to a sitting position, in shock. She couldn’t breathe.

Someone took the gun from her hand. Chloe blinked. Mandy scrambled around behind her, staying low and hurrying away.

Chloe looked at the blood pumping down the front of her shirt, falling rapidly from her neck. 

“BITCH. Doug, stay RIGHT where you are!” 

The sound of shuffling feet. Chloe slumped down onto her back, unable to hold herself up as cold washed over her from the top of her head downward. 

Bob came into view to the side of the desk. Chloe could see him looking down on her, his left hand against a flesh wound at his side, the other holding the gun aimed away, toward the room, most likely at Doug. 

“There was a fucking cop here?!” Bob screached. “I killed a God damned cop?!”

Cold. So cold. Not just her broken heart, but her whole body.

Her blood felt warm on the outside of her skin.

_ Trixie. Trixie baby. You’ll be the brightest, best thing I ever made. _

_ Lucifer. I’m sorry. You were right. You did the right thing. I know you did. I’m not mad at you anymore. I’m sorry. _

Her eyes closed, unable to remain open.

The last sounds Chloe heard were three shots ringing out. 

Bang. 

Bang. 

Bang.

And she heard no more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ):


	3. Raise a Little Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer does some detective work in Hell, seeking a way to contain the demons once and for all.

Hell had exactly one library, and it was vast. It was not, however, a lending library. Lucifer had no inclination to allow any demons to wander off with the books he’d taken pains to collect and, in some cases, write. Indeed, he was in fact the library’s sole owner, curator, and patron.

Lucifer sat in a hard chair made of granite, reading quietly. Or at least he tried to read. He squirmed in his stone seat, unable to get comfortable. Perhaps he’d been sitting too long. He could easily have been there for a couple of days by Earth’s standard measurements, maybe even weeks, gradually progressing through the mounds of books on the table in front of him and all around him on the floor. Time often proved difficult to track in Hell, though Lucifer had been more diligent about it since his return. 

All of the books surrounding him had to do with the nature of demons. However, none of them offered him a permanent solution to the matter of demon possession.

Lucifer had gone over all of the obvious possible solutions countless times. Yet he pondered them all again. 

He had considered killing every last demon in Hell but rejected the idea due to the impossible nature of it; certain kinds of demons spawned from Hell itself. Killing them all would be a temporary solution at best. However, he still liked the notion of it and revisited the idea occasionally. He had researched seals to a dizzying degree, and yet none of them could help him. And, taking inspiration from Linda, he had even conducted research into the demonic psyche to find a way to make possession unappealing to them. Fat lot of good that had done. What demons wanted to do, demons did, often without concern for consequences. 

All of these ideas, and hundreds more besides, had proven to be dead ends.

Unable to remain seated for a moment longer, Lucifer tossed the book he was reading onto the pile at his left and rose. He gave his body a good long stretch, arching his back to the point where he couldn’t help but unfurl his wings. Then he stretched those, too, one at a time, before folding them away again. 

Hell was sorely lacking in cushions...or anything soft, for that matter. 

The King of Hell prowled through the long hallway of the library. As he went, the small luminary sconces he’d placed along the high ceiling began to wink out behind him, leaving the books and shelves encased in darkness. 

He unsealed the doors to the library with a touch, and the heavy iron swung open. Upon exiting, he resealed the doors behind him, and they disappeared against the craggy surface of the building’s exterior. From the outside, it appeared like a vaguely cathedral-shaped hill of jagged rock. 

Lucifer thought to himself, not for the first time, that it was a shame he couldn’t seal all of Hell so easily. However, if he did, even souls would not be able to enter, and he didn’t fancy an Earth overrun by guilt-riddled ghosts. He wouldn’t want to ever attempt it for a second time. The one time he’d tried, it had become a well-known part of human lore, commonly referred to Samhain. What a debacle _ that _had been. 

Shoving his hands in pockets, he began to roam the corridors of Hell. 

Despite his casual gait, despite the decades that had crept by, urgency weighed upon Lucifer’s every action. 

His greatest enemies in Hell used to be the lack of creature comforts, the mind-numbing tedium of constantly dealing with demons, and the nauseating unfairness of the whole bloody system. Of course, all of that was not even saying anything about the problem of his own self-loathing, but that had its roots established even before he’d fallen.

Things had changed, however. Ever since his return, his only true enemy was _ time. _

In Hell, time moved differently, but still it moved. It nagged at him every moment. Time could be counted in breaths of ash-filled air, in tortured wounds that healed only to be inflicted again, and in heartbeats. 

Each heartbeat commanded him to action.

Find a way back. 

Don’t rest. 

Keep searching. 

So he continued to measure time, and he measured it against Hell and Earth alike. And he continued his mission with a devotion the likes of which he’d never applied to anything before, not even the creation of the stars.

At last, Lucifer’s stroll brought him to a cul-de-sac. Three doors were occupied — light shone around the edges and through the thick glass. Two incomplete, partially carved-out doors were in the process of forming; tiny pieces of stone gradually cracked and fell away from the basalt facade with each guilt-laden life choice of the potential future occupant. One of the two doors was nearly complete, with only a little more rock left to peel away from the corners. 

Lucifer had already entered one of the three occupied rooms. He entered the second.

* * *

When he began his research, Lucifer had visited with some of the most brilliant minds of human history, from Descartes and Socrates to Galileo and Faraday. For the first time, Lucifer had regretted his lack of access to Carl Sagan; the sod had gone straight to the Silver City. 

Useless.

Regardless, the “smart” ones hadn’t been much help to him. And when speaking with geniuses failed him, he decided to visit random souls instead.

So it was that Lucifer found himself sitting cross-legged on a sofa across from a highly rage-prone housewife and mother, Sandra Cardello. He had explained his problem with the demons to her and interviewed her, inquiring about her thoughts and opinions. She had proven to be spectacularly unhelpful. 

In the end, he rose to leave with a polite smile and a “Thank you.” Then, just before he exited, he turned back to see her still sitting, her expression dazed and disoriented. “Pardon me, but one more question: What do you do when your children continue to do something you’ve told them not to?”

Shadows darkened Sandra’s face, changing it from something plain into a hellish countenance. “That’s easy. I break their toys.” All about her, the loop began to reset, her private room responding to her negative emotions.

Lucifer felt his eyebrows rise. “I see. ” 

He departed swiftly. He had observed a portion of the housewife’s loop once before speaking with her, and it had shown her doing far worse than breaking toys. He had no desire to witness any of it a second time. 

However, her words stayed with him. 

* * *

When he exited the private room, he found his informant waiting for him. The demon Taurac looked up at him timidly, a set of claw marks marring her mottled gray face. The wound was fresh, still oozing blood. More blood, presumably of another demon, painted her protruding fangs and lips.

“My King? Rebellion stirs.” 

Instantly, fire consumed him from within and began to seep out of his pores. When he spoke, his voice dropped to a lower, unholy resonance.

“Lead me,” he commanded, and she did. 

* * *

Lucifer fought viciously, ruthlessly, not only to protect those he cared about up above, but also to punish those responsible for the theft of his time...time lost to him due to the unforgivable idiocy of mutinous demons. 

Fortunately, it was one of the smaller rebellions he’d been forced to address since returning. It cost merely a few hours of time on Earth, instead of the months that the initial rebellions had stolen away. 

Regardless, it ended with him covered in all manner of unpleasant things, blood the least offensive among the substances. 

Due to the fact that the only bodies of water in Hell were putrid, sulfuric, or composed entirely of fire, Hell had no clean water source. Cleanliness required a visit to the private rooms of damned souls. 

Lucifer returned to the cul-de-sac where Taurac had found him. He still had one door left, which he entered without hesitation. 

Inside, he found himself in a shabby apartment and sighed. Couldn’t it have been at least a nice condominium? 

Lucifer looked down at the man in a brown officer’s uniform where he sat on a sunken couch. The man had frozen in place, staring up at Lucifer in horror, his mouth hanging open. He had his feet up on the coffee table in front of him and held a paper-wrapped burger in his hands. Beer cans and other refuse littered nearly every surface. His brown hair hung limp on his head.

Lucifer sighed again and swept a piece of broken skull off his sleeve. “I do hope you have shampoo because you appear not to even know what it is.” 

The man opened his mouth to say something, but Lucifer held up one finger. “Ah, no, you’ll forget me in just a moment as soon as I’m out of your sight. I assure you that I do wish to speak with you. First, however, I’m going to borrow your bathroom. I’ll come back clean, or at least as clean as it’s possible to get in this hovel, and then we can have a chat.” 

Without another word, Lucifer turned to the only hallway. His footsteps tracked gore and ichor across the already stained carpet. 

“There’s shampoo in the cabinet,” the man shouted behind him. 

Lucifer offered a “Thank you” and a grin over his shoulder. The grin didn’t appear to reassure the man, however, which made sense considering that Lucifer could taste his own blood in his mouth. 

Upon entering the bathroom, the smell immediately convinced him that something had died in there at some point. Lucifer gave a groan and a roll of his eyes that would have been worthy of the Detective. His dignity shriveled up inside his heart, but he forged ahead and practically emptied the aerosol can that rested on the sink beside the toilet. 

The shampoo in the cabinet was two-in-one. Lucifer gave it a stare of utter contempt before caving in and placing it on the tub’s ledge. 

He dumped his wet and sticky leather armor on the linoleum floor when he stepped into the shower. A while later, when he stepped back out again, the sullied armor was gone, and a clean set lay on the narrow ledge of the sink. 

Hell itself got up to funny business in some peculiar ways, including an insistence that its king be properly dressed at all times. Once, a very long time ago, Lucifer had attempted to commune with the sentience of the underworld to better understand its nature and desires. It had utterly ignored him, much like a cat turning its backside to its owner and then promptly plopping down for a long nap. 

However, he appreciated the change of clothing. Lucifer dressed, sighed at his unruly curls on display in the cracked mirror, and exited the hell-hole within a Hell-hole that was the condemned man’s bathroom. 

Then he discovered the man kneeling on his carpet, clutching at his chest and gasping for air. 

“Damn,” Lucifer said dispassionately. “Let’s skip this death scene part, shall we? I’ve lost some time recently, and I’d like to keep rolling along, if you don’t mind.”

At Lucifer’s whim and command, with nothing more than a raised hand, the loop’s progress halted. The man on his knees collapsed backwards onto his arse, looking down at his chest in confusion. 

“It keeps happening,” the man muttered. “Over and over, the same thing.” 

“Yes, yes, trust me, I know,” Lucifer replied. “Having to listen to this speech repeatedly is its own special kind of never-ending torture.” 

Lucifer pulled a plain wooden chair away from the kitchen table and set it down facing the recumbent soul. He refused to sit on the stained couch. Taking a seat on the chair and folding his long legs, he continued, “Now, introductions are in order. I’m Lucifer, King of Hell, but absolutely not the Prince of Lies, seeing as that is ridiculous and unjust slander, most likely started by my brother Michael. And you are…?” 

The man slowly pulled himself up onto the couch but settled on it as far away from Lucifer as he could get. “I’m...I’m Ned Coleman. This is how I died, and I just keep reliving it over and over. My God, what have I done?” 

“No, no God here I’m afraid, only me. Now then…” Ned’s eyes wandered off into the distance, lost and desperate. Lucifer snapped his fingers a few times to draw him back. “_Now _ then! Ned, tell me, what would you do if you had to contain unruly individuals who have a tendency to go where they don’t belong?”

Tears welled in the man’s eyes. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? In Hell? It’s because of the kids?” 

Lucifer felt his face twist unpleasantly. “What children?” he demanded to know. 

“The kids! The kids we take from their parents! They told us the children have to stay separate, and we have to keep them all contained. There’s this one boy, I don’t even know his name. He’s five, maybe six. Every time I see him, he’s crying. I’ve never seen him _ not _crying. But there wasn’t anything I could do. I was just doing my job. You have to understand; it was my job!” 

Anger grew within the Devil’s heart with every word he heard. Lucifer rose slowly. “I understand quite a bit about doing an unpleasant job. However, _ Ned, _ there’s one thing I don’t understand in the slightest: _ squandering _your free will!” His eyes flashed red as he towered over the condemned man. 

Ned tried to scream, but the sound came out as a mere gasp. He clutched at his chest as his heart attack resumed. 

“We’re done here.” Lucifer stalked away. 

Just outside the Hell loop, Lucifer took a moment to run his hand over his face. Clearly Hell was using this little corner to collect souls who did harm to children. 

An image came to his mind of a cheerful young urchin, her face surrounded by dark hair, her arms open as she rushed towards him. He recalled clearly how that face always smiled when saying his name. Then he thought of what that same face would look like if left alone to cry each and every day, trapped in a cage. 

Lucifer bellowed a command in the rough, grating tongue of the underworld, and half a dozen imps appeared in front of him before the last echo of it rattled through the nearby hallways. He then gestured to the door he’d just exited. 

“This one requires special treatment,” he told them.

They let out cackles of glee and rushed to enter the room, bumping and jostling each other on their way. The door fell shut with a loud _ clang _behind the last one. However, another unexpected noise followed it….

Crack. Crack. CRACK.

The last pieces of stone had just fallen from the newly formed door. Light began to emanate from within, seeping warmly through the glass like a Hellish beacon intended to lure the damned. 

Movement from the corner of his eye caught Lucifer’s attention. He turned to the entrance of the cul-de-sac, where the dimly glowing sphere of a condemned soul approached, bobbing like a will-o’-wisp. As Lucifer watched, the sphere changed, elongating and taking shape. It stretched and contorted to take on the form it had once occupied in life, that of a man. 

The man ignored Lucifer and stared at the unoccupied room with fixation. He walked to the door and entered. 

Lucifer watched it happen as if in slow motion, his thoughts wheeling in circles.

_ ...break their toys… _

_ ...keep them all contained... _

In Lucifer’s mind, new puzzle pieces appeared, and others that had never fit suddenly slotted into place, displaying a never-before-seen picture...a _ solution. _

He’d been going about everything the wrong way from the start. 

“Bloody HELL!” Lucifer shouted. Without hesitation, he unfurled his white wings and launched himself upward into the air. He used rapid, powerful downbeats to propel himself through the sky, squinting to shield his eyes from bits of falling ash. Lucifer raced toward his throne. When he reached it, he reared up sharply at the last possible second to land in a standing position upon the stone seat. Then he waited, looking out at the eternal horizon and slowly scanning the dark, jagged landscape. 

Then he saw one: There, in the distance, the flickering sphere of a soul descended from the gray clouds. It fell inexorably downward, but not instantly. The rate of descent appeared roughly similar to the rate at which a leaf would fall from a tree on a day without wind. Then another soul appeared at another far-distant point, falling at the same speed. 

Lucifer had sought a way to control the demons — an endeavor doomed to failure if ever there was one. All along, he should have been trying to control the _ souls. _

The King of Hell felt the fire rising in his chest. He knew his eyes had begun turning orange. The wings at his back transformed, feathers disappearing to be replaced with stretched skin and wicked claws. His leather armor strained to contain him, creaking ominously. 

The words he spoke next resonated in the native tongue of the netherworld. 

“I know you can hear me,” he called out, addressing the very presence of Hell directly. “And just as I know that you can hear me, I also know that you can sense what I intend to do. You and I, we have rarely seen eye to eye. We have fought, many times, and both ended up worse for the wear when all was said and done.” He paused for a moment, allowing Hell a chance to digest that. No reply was forthcoming, so he continued. “This deed that I’m about to do? It will happen. I swear _ on my life _ that I will do this. And you know very well the value of my oath, do you not?” 

Around him, Hell rumbled as though a midsummer thunderclap rolled across the land. 

Lucifer smiled, the expression stretching his red, craggy face in unfamiliar ways. “I see that I have your attention.” He turned in a slow circle where he stood atop his throne. “Well then, the only question left is, how strongly will you resist me?”

Another roll of thunder shook the ground, causing Lucifer to sway and arch his wings to keep his balance. Across the landscape, red lightning struck multiple locations simultaneously. 

Then, for the first time in all his years, Lucifer heard the voice of Hell itself. It spoke directly to him, a whisper heard only on the inside of his soul. 

_ “Show me.” _

The voice washed through him like the blackest night, like emptiness so profound that nothing could compare. Stunned and struggling for breath, with tears falling unbidden from his eyes, Lucifer gripped the backrest of his stony perch to keep from falling over. He pressed his other hand over his aching chest, willing his heart not to leap out in sheer panic. Still floundering after many heaving gasps for air, he switched back to English. 

“For Dad’s sake, if that’s what your voice sounds like, I should be thanking you for never speaking to me before!” 

Softer thunder rumbled far in the distance. 

Lucifer had the distinct impression that Hell was laughing at him. 

As his mind cleared and his physical responses calmed, he thought over the two simple words that he’d heard: Show me. He then leapt up so that he straddled his throne with a foot on each armrest. 

“Seeing as you’re in an agreeable mood, I think it’s time to raise a little Hell!”

He reached out with both arms, palms facing outward and fingers outstretched. 

He reached out with both wings, extending them to their full wingspan. 

Finally, he gritted his teeth and reached out with his power, digging deep down into the rock core below. Ground cracked in the place where he focused his attention. The surface of Hell shifted, pieces of land moving like a feline writhing away from an unexpected touch.

_By [ZeeArts](https://zeearts.tumblr.com/)_

The first spire began to rise, gradually stretching toward the clouds forever churning above. 

From the corner of his eye, he saw a second spire rising, this one not of his making but of Hell’s own creation.

Lucifer laughed with manic delight. It was heady stuff to not only solve his nightmarish dilemma but to also experience the triumph of working in cooperation with Hell for the first time in his existence. 

_ Wait for me, Chloe, _ he thought, sending an urgent prayer to Earth up above. _ I’ll be back at your side soon! _

* * *

He couldn’t quite accomplish all that he had planned in a single go; well before that, he collapsed onto his throne, barely able to keep his eyes open yet deeply satisfied with his work. Even as he rested, Hell itself endeavored to complete the intended design without him, and wasn’t that a riot? 

Lucifer giggled at his own thoughts, punch-drunk on exhaustion. 

His eyes slid closed, and sleep nearly had him.

“My King! My King!” 

One eye opened. Someone was shouting from below.

Lucifer squirmed so that he could look down over over one arm rest. It was Taurac again. 

He yelled down to her. “I know there’s been a bit of turbulence around the homestead, but everything is just fine! Men at work and all that, although I forgot my sexy construction worker outfit. More’s the pity. Pardon our dust!” Lucifer giggled again. 

“My King, please!”

Lucifer grumbled but then shouted back. “What is it, Taurac? Another rebellion so soon? The rabble should have remained quelled for at least a little while longer, I’d think.”

“No, not a rebellion. It’s other news from the land of LA.” 

A frown creased his brow. Lucifer rose and stepped off his throne into a graceful dive, allowing gravity to do the work for him and then adjusting for a smooth landing in front of his underling.

He gestured impatiently to his minion. “Yes, well, go on. What is it?” 

She wrung her clawed hands together. “My King, it’s best that you see for yourself.” 

Lucifer sighed. “Very well. But we’re doing this the fast way.” He picked up the small demon and leapt into the air with her, causing her to growl in surprise. “Now point the way for me.” 

Taurac directed him back to the cul-de-sac where he’d had his epiphany. He landed, placed the demon back on her feet, and neatly folded his wings into his back. 

“This one,” Taurac said, indicating the newest door. She began to back away as though to leave.

“Stay here,” he commanded. “I may have questions for you when I’m done.” 

Lucifer cautiously opened the door and entered. 

He found himself surrounded by...clothing? He saw clothing in plastic bags. He apparently had entered a store from the rear door. 

He looked at the logo on a nearby hanger: Handy’s Alterations and Dry Cleaning. 

Lucifer heard voices arguing within the store, and he heard a vehicle pulling up just outside. He stalked quietly into the shadows at the edges of the scene so that he could remain undetected by whichever soul was generating the loop. 

He’d just have to see how it all played out. 

* * *

Outside the room, Taurac waited in terror and silence. 

Although not an especially old demon, she had heard many screams, cries, whimpers, and moans in her life. Taurac had listened to the varied expressions of pain and suffering as a human might listen to music, savoring every one of them even when they were her own.

The agonized cry of the King of Hell, when it reverberated through the door, brought the soulless demon to her knees and made her weep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whatcha doing there with those spires, Lucifer? 🤔


	4. Make Some Time for Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe's soul begins to ascend toward the Silver City, but she doesn't get far before her journey is interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post this chapter until tomorrow, but my beta, [sutekinanijinoiro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutekinanijinoiro), strongly suggested that you deserve to get it sooner and that it would be mean of me to hold it back any longer. So, tada! Early release.
> 
> Plus, the story is sitting at 99 kudos right now, and I want to see who will be #100. :) I figure a new chapter might be good bait.

Freedom. All Chloe knew was freedom, like getting out from under a blanket that was too hot, or stripping off sweaty clothing after a long day under the scorching sun. 

She could see nothing, but it didn’t worry her. Her only perception was a lightness and a slow rising sensation. She knew she had a journey ahead of her, but at that moment she couldn’t recall the destination. However, she had confidence that if she simply went with the upward momentum, everything would work out the way it should. 

Her memories were distant, far-off things. She carried them with her, tucked away someplace safe, deep inside her very being. They were the only valuable treasures she could take with her, each one to be unpacked and carefully sorted upon reaching the end of the journey.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hold on! Wait up!” 

Was that voice talking to her? She didn’t recognize it. Also, she couldn’t stop rising even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. The unknown endpoint that lay ahead was all that mattered. 

An obstacle suddenly asserted itself above her, blocking her progress. Frustrated, Chloe bumped up against it a couple of times, but it didn’t budge. 

“Yeah, yeah, I understand. You have places to go and people to see, right? Look, I really just need to talk to you before you go anywhere, okay?”

Chloe sighed, or she would have, but she didn’t have the ability. In fact, she couldn’t form words at all, or even feel anything the way she was used to….

Oh God. Oh _ God! _ A single, crystal-clear memory came back to her. She had _ died. _ What was even happening? Where was she? 

And Chloe, who existed then as nothing more than a sphere of soul matter, trembled. 

“Hey, oh dang it, now you’re scared. I’m sorry. I looked away from you for just a little bit, and then WHAM, it finally happened.”

Chloe wished she could see who was talking to her. The voice sounded feminine. 

“But really, first I have to say, I have soooo been looking forward to meeting you. Since, like, before you were born, to be honest. How weird is that?” 

Chloe couldn’t respond. All she could do was wait and shiver helplessly. 

“Whoopsie. I guess some instructions are in order. Look, you don’t have any sort of voice box right now, but the good news is that all you have to do is concentrate and think a clear message at me, and I’ll get it.” 

_ WHO ARE YOU? _Chloe thought urgently at her captor. 

“Yikes, geez, no need to shout!” 

_Sorry._ _Who are you?_

“Oh! I guess that was rude of me, not introducing myself. I’m Azrael. And you, I already know, are Chloe Decker.” 

She could practically hear the big, delighted grin in Azrael’s voice. 

Wait, Azrael? She knew that name, or at least she thought she did. It sounded vaguely familiar, but Chloe was having difficulty pulling up specific memories. 

Hesitantly, Chloe formed a question. _ And you are...? _

“The angel of death. That’s me!” Then she let out a dejected sigh. “I get it. Nobody’s ever thrilled to meet me. In fact, most of you humans would rather run the other way.” 

The angel seemed so distraught that Chloe’s empathy surged, and it gave off a pulse. It was an unfamiliar sensation, like energy moving out of her. 

Apparently Azrael felt it, too.

“Aww, that’s sweet of you. You’re figuring out this soul thing really quickly. I’m impressed.” 

The obstacle that was blocking Chloe’s upward path pulled her downward a bit, causing her to flutter in panic. Her journey! She had to continue. Every aspect of her existence instinctively urged her to press onward and upward. However, in the next moment, she felt as though she was being cradled and contained between two strong, exceptionally warm and comforting hands. They pulsed, much as she had, and serenity radiated through her. 

_ Oh, _ Chloe thought. _ That’s much better. _ The urgency to depart still whispered to her from the background of her consciousness, but it was held at bay.

“I thought it might help,” Azrael replied. “Now then, are you up for that chat?” 

That was when Chloe remembered: The angel had said she needed to talk to her. 

_ I’m literally in your hands, _ Chloe thought. 

“Awesome! Okay. Where do I begin? I’ve been looking forward to this for _ so _ long. And nothing like this has ever happened before, and I do mean _ ever, _ so it’s not like I have a standard speech or anything.” 

Chloe, confused, just waited patiently. Something about Azrael reminded her of someone else she once knew. 

“Right. I’ll just throw it out there: You have two choices. And honestly that’s something I never thought I’d tell a recently deceased soul.”

_ Choices? _ Chloe asked. _ You mean I can choose between Heaven and Hell? _ She couldn’t understand why anyone would choose Hell, but something in her fuzzy memories began to stir, begging for attention. The memory remained just out of reach. 

“Nope, no no, nothing like that,” Azrael responded quickly. “That’s not something anyone gets to choose. Basically, I have a gift for you. I was asked to hold onto it until the time of your death. I guess it’s kind of like an inheritance but the opposite…? Whatever. You can either accept the gift or skip it.” 

If she had a face, Chloe knew her expression would have been dubious. _ What kind of gift? Who told you to offer it to me? _

“No wonder you’re a detective. You dig right into the important questions, don’t you?” 

A detective? Yes, that was it! A piece of her memory unlocked. Chloe was a detective, an officer of the law. With that memory came another: She worked in LA. Relief washed over her to have those little pieces of her identity back. 

The angel continued, oblivious to Chloe’s revelations. “Well, I called it a gift, but it’s really more of a blessing. Aaaand it’s from my Dad. You know. The Big Guy. _ God. _ Oh. Er, now that I think of it, Lu’s probably gonna be pissed.” 

Her words deeply confused Chloe. The angel of death was offering her a blessing from God? Why offer it post-mortem? And who was Lu? 

A thought occurred to her that she couldn’t help but get into the strangest of situations. Even though she was certain that the thought was true, other examples of such odd occurrences escaped her. 

Frustration mounted. She couldn’t face this choice while she was at half capacity; her walled-off memories were critical to decision-making. She squirmed and wiggled in the angel’s hands, trying to access the rest of them. She thought about the sensation of how the memory of her job title in LA had returned to her, and she began following the trail of the memory back to its source. 

There! She found a cluster of recollection. She was the daughter of Penelope and John Decker! A small handful of early childhood memories swamped her conscious, causing her to vibrate warmly. Then she started to dig around for more. 

Azrael gave a gasp. “Whoa, oh my gosh, how are you doing that? You’re not supposed to be able to do that! Wow, holy cow, slow down. I can help you. You’re doing it the hard way. Shoot, I was going to do that anyway if you’d given me just a minute.” 

The hands holding Chloe pulsed several times in quick succession. 

With each pulse, memories came rushing back to her. Growing up, acting lessons, auditions, filming, her father’s funeral, her mother’s tears, joining the academy. Meeting Dan, getting married, having Trixie, loving Trixie more than she’d ever thought possible, making detective. Joys and heartaches. Holidays. Parties. Fun and sadness. Case after case, story after story. Malcolm, Ella, Charlotte, Pierce, Eve. 

Lucifer.

For a moment, she simply sat in Azrael’s hands, overwhelmed and trembling. 

“I underestimated you, Chloe. Normally those memories stay locked until souls reach their destinations. I’m not even sure how you did what you did. You’re an amazing little soul. Stubborn, but amazing.”

_ Thanks, I think, _ Chloe thought back at her. She took a moment to let everything settle back down. _ What exactly is the blessing? What does it do? _

“That’s the thing! I have absolutely _ no _ idea. I’ve literally been holding onto it since before you were born. Dad didn’t tell me anything about what it does, and it’s not like anyone can just open up a blessing and see what’s inside. Trust me: If I could have, I _ would _have. Please, please tell me you’re going to accept it. I just gotta know what it does.” 

Azrael reminded Chloe of Trixie when her birthday was coming up. Her little girl always developed a strange mixture of whiny and hyperactive chatter. 

Thinking of Trixie sent a frisson of sadness through her, but she shook it off. She had to focus. 

_ I haven’t decided yet, _ Chloe replied. _ I need more information. Anything you can tell me would be helpful. Like, for instance, do you know _ why _ I’m being offered a blessing? _

“That’s just it! I have no idea! Dad didn’t tell me _ or _ Amenadiel why he gave us either of the blessings for you. Amenadiel's was at least _somewhat _self-explanatory since it resulted in your birth.” 

What. 

Amenadiel...

_ WHAT? _

“Hey, geez, shouting again! You gotta cut that out. I’m going to get a celestial-grade migraine.” The angel paused briefly, and Chloe had the vague impression that she was trying to relax. “So, basically, your mom was having trouble getting pregnant. Dad summoned Amenadiel and told him to give her a blessing to nip that problem in the bud. I got called in after Amenadiel, and Dad gave me a blessing, said it was for the resulting child, _ you, _ and that you could say yes or no to it at the time of your death. Basically, the blessings are like bookends on your life. I’ve just been waiting around all this time to find out what this blessing even _ is.” _

Chloe could hardly begin to process all of that. It was a lot to deal with, to say the least. And yet, one question rose to the forefront before all others:

_ Does Lucifer know about this? About any of it? _She dreaded the answer, but she had to know.

“Ehhh, yeah, some of it? I mean, you were really badly poisoned at one time, pretty close to death, so I was keeping a close eye on you. That’s around the time when Lu found out about you being a miracle baby. He, uh, didn’t take it very well. But hey! Nobody knows about this second blessing except you and me, so there’s that.” 

Chloe thought about the poison, about feeling it slowly draining every bit of energy and hope out of her. She thought about her recovery, about Lucifer’s disappearance, his sudden marriage, his rejection of any sort of deeper feelings the two of them had begun to develop….

No shit Lucifer hadn’t taken it well. 

Chloe desperately wished she could roll her eyes and drop her head into her hands. 

Then she began to wonder: What would Lucifer do if she willingly accepted another blessing from God? 

She shoved that thought aside for the time being. 

_ You said I have two options: I can accept the blessing or reject it. You can’t tell me what happens if I accept it because you don’t know. Can you tell me what happens if I refuse? _

“Sure. If you refuse, I’ll have to make your memories dormant again and let you go. As soon as I let you go, you’ll flutter along the same way you were headed before, and you’ll follow your path to the end of the line.”

_ And the end of the line is...what? _ Chloe prodded. 

“The Silver City, of course. You were making a speedy bee-line for it earlier.”

The Silver City. That was what Lucifer and Amenadiel called Heaven. Chloe had been on her way to Heaven, where her dad was, where Charlotte was. 

And yet, the Silver City was the place where Lucifer _ wasn’t. _ Where he would never be. 

Azrael had it wrong: Chloe didn’t have a choice between refusing or accepting the blessing. No, instead she had to choose between _ going to Heaven _ or accepting the blessing — which did God-only-knew-what. 

One option was a known outcome with known consequences. The other option led to the unknown. If she chose the unknown, it could backfire horribly.

_ What if I accept the blessing but end up not liking it? Does God offer a refund policy if a blessing doesn’t fit right? _ She forced a laugh in her mind, which sounded worse than doing so aloud.

“I think you already know it doesn’t work that way,” Azrael replied. 

_ No, I didn’t know for sure, _ Chloe shot back. _ I don’t know much of anything right now. I have no idea what will happen if I accept this thing! _

“Acceptance is a very powerful thing, but it always requires bravery.” The angel suddenly sounded much wiser and older, no longer speaking like a playful teenager. “I think you probably know that more than most.”

The words struck Chloe to the quick. She already knew what she wanted to choose because each and every one of her instincts was urging her in the same direction. All that remained was for her to conquer her fears. 

Ella would call the situation an opportunity for faith. Lucifer would call it diabolical. 

As for Chloe…

_ Give me the blessing. Please. _

...Chloe would call it obvious.

* * *

She came to awareness slowly, reluctantly. She felt as though she had just woken up from the best night’s sleep she’d ever experienced, and sluggishness made her body highly unresponsive. Wakefulness seemed like a great deal of effort. 

Hearing came back first. The soft taps of feet on the ground. People talking, many of them angry, others distressed.

Disorientation fogged her mind. Where was she? What was going on? 

Other sensations began to return. Chloe felt warm, comfortable, as though wrapped in an electric blanket, but she could also tell that she wasn’t under any covers. In fact, she lay on a hard surface. Something sticky clung to the left side of her neck, as well as her shoulder and ear. 

Taste and smell came back to her next, one right after the other. An inexplicable flavor of honey teased the tip of her tongue. On a small inhalation through her nose, she could smell drying blood, gunpowder, and the cloying fragrance she associated with lint. 

People near her were arguing. 

“You should step away, let someone else handle this.” 

“NO! I know what I’m saying is crazy, but you _ have _to listen to me!” 

Chloe knew that voice. Ella? She tried to call out to her friend, but the lethargy was so strong that she couldn’t manage even that. She’d never experienced sleep paralysis before, but she imagined it must feel something like this. 

“Lopez, I know this is emotional for you, but think about what you’re doing. Keep it together. Come on, let’s take a walk.” 

Then came the sound of movement, shuffled footsteps, and a brief tussle. Chloe could finally open her eyes the barest crack — just in time to see Ella harshly slap a uniformed officer’s hand off her arm. 

“Let go of me! This is about science, not emotions, and you know what science is telling me? Chloe isn’t getting colder; she’s getting _ hotter, _ so that,” the woman pointed down sharply at Chloe without looking away from the officer, “is _ not _ a corpse! We need to get her to a hospital right the fuck now!” 

Chloe couldn’t remember ever hearing Ella curse like that, at least not in English. She looked like she was ready to start punching at any moment. 

“ELLA!” Dan’s voice, watery and unstable, entered the conversation. He stepped between the small, fierce latina and the officer. He took Ella by both shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “Ella, Chloe’s gone.” Dan’s voice wavered and broke. “Please. She isn’t breathing. She doesn’t have a pulse. It’s been _ two hours _since it was called in. Ella, I need you to get ahold of yourself. This is hard enough already!”

Chloe took a deeper breath, opened her eyes a little wider, and found the strength to speak. 

“Hey, guys,” she murmured. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here, will ya?”

The three people next to her froze, and their eyes all widened as they simultaneously turned to look at her. 

Meanwhile, Chloe winced at a kink in her neck as she rolled up into a sitting position. Hesitantly, she put a hand up to her neck, finding it tacky with blood.

Near her, Dan staggered backwards a step. _ “Chloe,” _ he whispered. 

The nameless officer looked like he had turned into a statue. 

Ella, meanwhile, had only one thing to say...or rather, scream.

_ “MEDIC!” _

* * *

The furor that followed was nothing short of pure chaos. The paramedics who had been keeping a close eye on Doug and Mandy for shock suddenly rushed into action, dragging out a stretcher from the ambulance on the street and running it into the building. However, the stretcher was immediately waved off by Chloe, who had already gotten to her feet on her own. Ella and Dan hovered around her like anxious hummingbirds, and the medics were urging her to have a seat. Every person in the vicinity crowded around them and tried to get a look at her. 

Finally, Lieutenant Nobbs, who had just arrived at the scene, restored order by roaring for everyone to focus on their business. The onlookers broke up, though stunned expressions and glances followed Chloe and lingered on her. 

The craggy lieutenant turned to Chloe with a frown. “Decker. I heard you were dead.” His eyes dropped to the dramatic blood painting her neck and shoulder. 

What could she possibly say to that? “Yeah. I’ll walk it off, sir.” 

The lieutenant gave an amused snort and a half smile. “Good. I’m glad the report was wrong. Don’t let me see you in the office this week.” He walked away to speak with a uniformed officer.

Dan couldn’t take it any longer. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, and he put his large hand on the side of Chloe’s face. “Shit, I thought you were gone.” He wrapped her tightly in his arms. “I can’t lose you, too.”

Chloe returned his hug, though much more gently. She patted him on the back. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m here now.” She held him for a few minutes until he stiffened, becoming uncomfortable, and he pulled away with a sniff. “Hey, hey, it’s all right. But Dan, you gotta tell me: Trixie’s okay, right? You didn’t tell her anything about,” _ my death, _ “what you saw here, did you?” 

Dan shook his head. “No. God no. This, you, it’s all been so fast. There hasn’t even been a chance yet. My God, are you really alright?” He stared in disbelief at her. 

That came as a huge relief. “Good. And yes, I’m okay now.” Although Trixie would still inevitably find out about what had happened, as she somehow always did despite Chloe’s best efforts, the damage would be greatly reduced.

After that exchange, the medics finally had their way and ushered her to the back of an ambulance. The first thing they did was clean her neck. Beneath the red stains, they found only unmarred skin. There was no entry or exit wound. 

“How is that even possible?” asked one of the two paramedics. She looked at Chloe with an expression mixed with equal parts awe and denial. “I saw the bullet hole when we arrived. I _ saw _it. This can’t happen.”

Irritated and wishing she could simply walk away, Chloe turned to the medic and took a page out of Lucifer’s book: She told the truth. 

“It was a miracle. I’m perfectly fine thanks to God’s intervention.” She got up from her seat on the back ledge of the ambulance.

Both medics protested loudly and convinced a reluctant Chloe to sit back down so that they could continue to poke and prod her. Her blood pressure was stable, and although she was running a temperature of 99.5 degrees, she didn’t feel feverish. Her energy had returned rapidly, the earlier lethargy completely gone. The only thing bothering her was a tingling in her fingertips and toes.

When at last she convinced them that she wouldn’t be going to a hospital and that they had to let her go, she began walking away only to find Dan approaching her. 

“Chloe. Are you sure you’re alright? Maybe you should go with them and get a complete check up just in case. I mean, you were —” He blinked rapidly a few times and shook his head. “I don’t know what you were, but it wasn’t good. Look, you know I’ll always care about you, and seeing you like that was…after Charlotte...” 

Chloe put her hand on his arm, squeezed it reassuringly, and gave him a smile. “I’m fine. Trust me. Now, tell me what happened at the scene.” 

“God, you’re unbelievable,” Dan laughed, comforted by her unwavering hunger for answers more than any other words could manage. “Bob Hansen is dead, killed in apparent self-defense by Mandy Beck. I’m not on the case, but another detective is going to want to interview you soon. And from what Doug and Mandy are saying, Bob’s now our number one guy for Georgia Watson’s murder, not to mention a complete slimeball. It’s also turned into a human trafficking investigation.”

Apparently, all the important details had come to light while she’d been otherwise unavailable, not to mention unliving. “Another detective was assigned?” Chloe asked more sharply than she intended. 

“That’s what you got outta that? Yeah. Weinstein.”

“I cracked it. It goes on my solve rate,” Chloe replied. 

“No one would ever dream of arguing otherwise,” he said with amusement. “Hey, are you absolutely sure you’re okay?” 

“Definitely. But Trixie…” and there she hesitated for a moment, “I know I was supposed to pick her up in the morning, but do you think you could take her for the rest of the week?” It tore Chloe up to make that request because all she wanted to do was pull her baby into her arms and hold on for a few hours or days.

“Way ahead of you. Was already planning on it. In fact, I’m not even on this case, so as long as you’re good, I’m going to head out and pick her up. You are good, aren’t you?” 

Chloe’s eyes widened. “Yes, Dan, for the last time, I’m fine. I promise. Go give Trixie a big, big hug for me.”

“You got it.” He nodded and strolled away, but he looked back at her over his shoulder multiple times as he departed. 

Chloe watched him go but then lifted one hand and gently rubbed her fingers together. They tingled, the sensation a mild irritation and distraction. She narrowed her eyes at them. 

“Pssst.”

Chloe frowned and looked around. 

“Pssst!!” 

A motion in her peripheral vision caught Chloe’s eye. A young, spectacled woman of South Asian ethnicity loitered at the east corner of Handy’s storefront. She stood well within the police barricade and, judging by her casual dress, clearly a civilian. She was also waving at Chloe to get her attention.

Chloe marched over to her. “You can’t be here. This is an active crime scene. I’m going to have to ask you to —” 

“Look, I’m sorry. I get it, but I _ really _need to talk to you.” 

Chloe had been just about to take the woman by the arm, but she froze upon hearing her voice. She knew that voice. 

“Azrael?” Chloe whispered. 

“Yep!” The angel raised a hand and wiggled her fingers in greeting. “So, can you make some time for death?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There! Now you can breathe easier, I'm sure.
> 
> You're not going to worry about that tingling sensation that Chloe is experiencing _at all_...right?


	5. Setting off Supernovas for Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Azrael chat about resurrection. Meanwhile, in Hell, the reconstruction process is finally complete.

Chloe imagined her expression must look as stunned as she felt. 

“I...yeah, I can make time for death. Uh, I mean, for _ you, _ not death because I don’t want to die again so soon.” Wonderful. She was babbling. 

“Great, because boy do we have a lot to talk about! But first, how are you feeling? Soul settling back in, everything in order?” Azrael looked Chloe over curiously, going so far as to circle around her. 

Chloe couldn’t resist the urge to turn in place to try to keep the angel in front of her. “Yes, everything is intact, I promise. Like I keep telling everyone, I’m just fine.” 

“Decker?” 

Mid-turn, Chloe saw Detective Keller Weinstein approaching her, and she halted. “Weinstein, hey.” 

Her fellow detective looked around her curiously before asking. “Who are you talking to?” 

“Oh, this is — ” She pointed at Azrael and turned to look at the angel in question, only to find that she was pressing her lips tightly together and shaking her head rapidly. To further demonstrate, Azrael darted around Chloe and waved a hand directly in front of Weinstein’s face, barely an inch from his nose, causing no reaction in the man, not even the tiniest flinch. 

Chloe closed the hand she’d been about to point with. “This is just me, talking things out. Brainstorming the case aloud, you know? Now that I think about it, I’ve seen you do the same thing, haven’t I?” 

Weinstein flushed and floundered. “Yeah, um...Hey, first of all, really glad you’re okay!” He held out his hands for a moment to emphasize his statement before dropping them back to his side. “And also, I need to ask you a few questions about what happened.” 

Azrael made a face and shook her head again, emitting urgent little “nuh uh” noises at Chloe. The angel pointed at her wrist as if indicating a nonexistent watch. 

It made sense that the angel of death ran on a tight schedule. 

“I am absolutely going to help you out with that,” Chloe said, “but first I have a couple phone calls I really need to make.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, relieved that it hadn’t been confiscated. “I have a few misunderstandings to clear up.” 

“Of course,” Weinstein said. “After that, come find me as soon as you can, okay?” 

“Without a doubt,” Chloe said with an exaggerated nod. 

“All right then,” Weinstein replied as he slowly walked backwards away from her. “Look alive — _ uh, _ I mean, talk to you soon!” At last he turned and scurried toward another officer. 

Chloe waited until he seemed far enough away and then put the phone up to her ear. She leaned back casually against the front corner of the store. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” Azrael asked. “I thought we were going to talk.” 

“We _ are _ going to talk,” Chloe replied. “I’m going to stand here and look like I’m using my phone because apparently _ you _are invisible.”

“That’s a really smart idea,” Azrael said with a growing smile. “I’ll have to remember that.”

Chloe frowned at the angel. “So why are you invisible to everyone but me? Is it some sort of angel power? Oh my God, can _ Lucifer _be invisible?” 

“No! No, it’s only me. I can choose to be seen or not seen by humans. Angel of death privileges. We angels each have an ability of some type or another, and this is mine. I’m sure it’s because I have to spend more time on Earth than all the other angels combined.” Azrael emphasized the word _ combined _ with an amusing facial expression. “And no, Lucifer can’t make himself invisible.” 

“Good,” Chloe said. She didn’t even want to think about the trouble he could cause with that sort of power. “The fewer invisible angels, the better. So, what did you want to talk about?”

Azrael’s eyes lit up behind her rimmed glasses, and she gestured urgently with her hands. “I have to know! What did it do?” 

Chloe frowned. “What did _ what _do?” 

“The blessing, of course!” Azrael whined, clearly impatient. “What happened with it?” 

Chloe blinked rapidly in confusion. She stared at the angel for a moment to see whether she was kidding, but Azrael just continued to wait with an eager look on her face.

Chloe finally said, “It brought me back to life.” She gestured down at her body, which was living, breathing, and moving, much to her relief. 

Azrael flapped one hand dismissively. “Yeah, I know that already. But what else?” 

“'_What else’? _What do you mean ‘what else’? That isn’t enough?!” 

“For that amount of power?” Azrael scoffed. “No way. That was _ at least _a hundred times as much energy as what’s needed for one resurrection, probably more. I mean, I’m pretty sure I could have set off a supernova with it if I needed to. Not that I go around setting off supernovas for fun.” Azrael grimaced and tried to look innocent, failing miserably. 

Chloe thought of the tingling in her fingers and toes, which was starting to spread into her hands and feet. “You didn’t think that was important to tell me when I was asking you for information?” Chloe asked with a mixture of fear and anger. 

“Uh. No? I should have, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry.” 

Some of the tension drained out of Chloe. It was really hard to stay mad at someone like Azrael. 

Chloe sighed. “It’s fine. I would have made the same choice regardless. I’m sure I would have thought about it a bit longer, but it was still going to go this way. So, what happens now? Is the extra energy missing? Do I need to give it back to you somehow?” 

Azrael opened her mouth and closed it a couple times before replying. “That’s...not how that sort of thing works. At least I’m pretty sure it isn’t. The blessing didn’t exactly come with a set of instructions.” 

“Ray-Ray?!” 

Chloe and the angel both looked sharply to the side, where Ella had just come out of the store. 

Azrael let out a squeak of alarm and swiftly turned around in a sorry attempt to hide from the forensic scientist.

Chloe, still standing with her back to the storefront, was positioned to look at the angel’s profile. She tried to catch her eye, but the angel studiously ignored her. 

Ella stormed over to them and inserted herself between Chloe and Azrael, facing Chloe with a big, forced smile. “Hey, Chloe! Just want to say again how glad I am you’re alright. Gotta go.” She whirled around, grabbed Azrael by the wrist, and started to walk away in a hurry, saying through gritted teeth, “C’mon, gotta go!” 

Chloe, at that point, was utterly done with being confused. “Freeze!” she barked at them both. They simultaneously turned large, dark, frightened eyes to look at her. In a quieter tone, Chloe asked, “You two know each other?” 

Ella reared back in surprise. “Wait, _ you two _ know each other? You can _ see _ her?” She looked back and forth between Chloe and Azrael, pointing at each of them in turn. Then she gave a big gasp. “Wait, hold the phone! I think I get it! Chloe, I know what’s going on, and I can totally explain it to you. There’s nothing to be afraid of, I promise.” Ella grew very serious. “You just had a near-death experience, and now you can see ghosts, just like me. Or _ a _ghost. This is Ray-Ray, the ghost I told you about before. Remember?”

Ella gestured to indicate Azrael next to her. Azrael just moaned miserably and buried her face in both hands. 

Chloe rolled her eyes so hard that it physically hurt. She slowly shook her head. Then she realized that she was still holding her phone to her ear and put it away. 

Chloe gave Azrael a hard stare, but the angel couldn’t see it due to the fact that she wouldn’t look up from her hands. “Do you want to tell Ella, or should I?” Chloe asked. “Because I kinda feel like this should come from you, _ Ray-Ray.” _

Azrael muttered something into her hands. 

Ella frowned and leaned in. “What was that?” 

At last, Azrael lifted her head. “My real name isn’t Ray-Ray, and I’m not a ghost!” 

“What? You aren’t?” Ella asked. 

“No, and I shouldn’t have told you that, but I was stumped! I technically wasn’t even supposed to be talking to you at all. When you asked why no one could see me, I didn’t know what to say, so I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Then, after a little while, I wanted to tell you the truth, but I didn’t know how. The longer it went on, the weirder it got. I’mreallysorrypleasedon’tbemadatme.”

Ella considered that for a moment with a tiny frown. “Look, telling the truth is important, okay? So next time just be honest with me. Aww, it’s okay, I’m not really mad. C’mere, gimme a hug.” Then Ella fearlessly wrapped the angel of death in a warm embrace. 

Chloe thought Azrael looked like she might be about to cry. 

The detective just raised her eyebrows and gave it a few extra seconds. 

Ella froze mid-hug and then pulled back to look at her friend. “Wait, if your name isn’t Ray-Ray, what’s your real name? And if you’re not a ghost, what _ are _you?” 

Azrael whimpered and turned pleading eyes on Chloe, who shook her head and scolded her, saying, “Just rip the damn bandaid off already. Please. I’ve been in her shoes, and it sucks.” 

The celestial pushed her glasses up her nose, took a deep breath, and looked Ella in the eyes. “My name is Azrael. I’m actually...kind of...an angel.”

Ella took a while to digest that. “You’re Azrael. You’re...an _ angel, _ from Heaven.” Chloe watched as the light behind Ella’s eyes started to kick in, going from quiet confusion to full blast, the likes of which Chloe had never witnessed before. “Oh my GOD! You’re an ANGEL! That is so incredible. I can’t believe I never thought of that all this time. Well, of course with you lying about being a ghost, that threw me off, but geez, a real freakin’ angel, that’s just so amazing. I mean, I always thought there had to be something more. I could just feel it deep down inside.” She patted her chest a couple times to indicate where the feeling had been coming from. 

Chloe felt a strange sense of déjà vu watching Ella go through so many thoughts and reconsiderations, just as she herself had done when she’d learned the truth. Granted, the circumstances had been different, and Ella was taking it much better. Chloe hazarded a bit of encouragement. “You always tell me to trust my instincts. The same goes for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, good call,” the scientist said in a distracted tone. Ella moved about rapidly as she processed the new information, turning this way and that and taking short steps. “But really, Ray-Ray, you‘ve been like my guardian angel all along, haven’t you? So you’re Azrael, huh? Wait, isn’t Azrael the angel of death?”

At that, the angel in question went tense all over, and a look of sheer dread crossed her face. The detective could practically hear the fears and doubts rolling around in her head. However, Ella continued on, oblivious. 

“Wow, that makes so much sense now that I think about it. I didn’t start seeing you until the car wreck, and I really was in big trouble back then, so I guess you had to check on me and see if it was my time. I mean, I’m glad it wasn’t, of course.” At that, Ella paused, looking at Azrael and then at Chloe. Her eyes widened dramatically. “Wait, you’re not, I mean, Chloe’s good to go now, right? You’re not here to...not here for her, are you?” 

“No!” Azrael said. “I’m not! Or at least, I was, but I’m not anymore. All business conducted and miracles completed for the day. No escort duties needed at this time.” 

“Miracles?” Ella practically squeaked. 

“Yep! Sometimes Dad asks me to do deliveries. Not very often though. Actually it’s been a really long time since the last one.”

Ella and Azrael continued to talk at a rapid-fire pace. Chloe could feel a headache beginning. The tingling in her extremities had also spread to her wrists and ankles. She considered telling Azrael about the pins-and-needles sensation and asking her advice, but the angel was clearly just as clueless about the situation as Chloe was. No, what she needed was a chance to curl up in a quiet place and recover from…her mind balked, but she forced herself to finish the thought: to recover from _ dying. _

She shivered and inserted herself back into the conversation. “I can see you two need a chance to catch up, and I know Weinstein wants to talk with me, so I’d better go find him.”

The two of them didn’t even notice as she slowly walked away. 

By the time she was able to leave the scene at Handy’s Alterations and Dry Cleaning, it was past ten o’clock. Although she wasn’t the least bit tired, all she wanted to do was to wrap herself up in a blanket and pretend for a few hours that the day had never happened. 

However, as soon as she climbed into her car, she could only stare helplessly at the steering wheel. She didn’t want to go home. 

After a few minutes of contemplation, Chloe started her car and began to drive.

* * *

The night that Lucifer had returned to Hell, Chloe had fallen asleep in his bed after crying herself out. The next morning, she’d woken abruptly to the sound of her phone ringing. Irrationally, she had scrambled to pick it up, thinking that Lucifer would answer with a plucky “Hello, Detective!”

However, the voice on the other end had belonged to Mazikeen. “Hey, Decker, look, I know Lucifer’s gone, and I also know if I let this call drag out, you’re going to get weepy on me, and I just...I can’t handle that right now. This is strictly a business call, got it?”

“Yeah, yes, that’s fine.” Chloe had been grateful for the pragmatic approach. “What business?”

“Possessions, and not the demonic kind. Like, human _ stuff _possessions. Lux and all the business accounts are mine, and the penthouse and everything in it are yours. There’s an account set aside in your name for upkeep.”

Stunned, Chloe hesitated too long in responding as she digested that.

“Decker, you there?”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” she murmured.

“Whatever you want. I mean it. If you’re pissed at him, you could just go ahead and burn it all. It’s what I would’ve done if he’d given it to me. I’ll get you the paperwork later.” Without waiting for a response, she’d hung up. 

Chloe hadn’t known what to do. It was more than she could handle. So, with great reluctance, she had found the dust covers, laid them across the furniture and the shining piano, and walked away. She hadn’t been back since, although she’d hired Patrick to check on the place regularly. 

After a long day of solving a murder, dying, and being resurrected, she walked into the darkened penthouse for the first time in six months. The white sheets made the household items look like sleeping monsters curled on their sides, gently illuminated at the edges by starlight and the glow of the city. 

She flipped on the light switch and found everything exactly as she’d left it. 

Standing just outside the elevator, she waited for a moment, fiddling with her hands. Nothing happened. 

Shaking her head, she went straight to the bar. After pulling out a tumbler, she reached for a bottle of scotch on the second shelf, but she had to pause and shake out the arm she’d been reaching with. The tingling sensation had spread to her elbows and knees. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it made her movements uncomfortable and awkward. 

Chloe reached for the scotch again and poured herself a generous glass. She sipped at it as she began a walkthrough, checking to make sure everything was undisturbed, that faucets and plumbing were in working order, and that there was no evidence of uninvited guests. She’d had Patrick change the security passcode to the elevator and stairwell, which previously hadn’t even been activated, but it was worth double-checking. 

When she completed her search and her tumbler was nearly empty, she found she’d run out of excuses to be there. 

Chewing on her lower lip, she sidled up to the piano. She lifted the dust cover from the front of it with a noisy swish of fabric, and then she dragged the bench out from below. Gingerly, she sat on the bench and lifted the key cover. A few quick presses of the keys revealed that the piano could benefit from tuning. 

She wondered whether Lucifer had tuned it himself. The ability to tune a fine instrument seemed like one of those many random skills he typically kept hidden away only to bring out when she least expected. 

For a long time, she simply sat there, quietly existing. Time ticked away, as it always did, and Chloe felt deeply grateful to be alive to count the minutes. She closed her eyes and tilted her head forward, her too-short hair brushing against her cheek and chin. 

A blessing to be born. A blessing to live again. 

“A little explanation sure would be nice about now,” she muttered down at the piano keys. Then she tilted her head back so that she could look at the ceiling and really start letting loose on anyone who might be listening from up above. However, at that moment, a wave of dizziness struck her. The alcohol must have been stronger than she thought, or perhaps it was because she hadn’t eaten anything in so long. 

Chloe wobbled on the piano bench. Nausea suddenly roiled inside her, not just in her stomach but everywhere. It felt as though all of her organs were protesting, staging a massive revolt.

She tried to get her phone out of her pocket, but her hand flopped awkwardly, numb and lacking coordination. She then moved to stand and straighten out her pants so she could try again to dig into her pocket, but her legs wouldn’t hold her, and she stumbled. She had just enough strength to curl herself into a rolling fall so she wouldn’t hit her head.

Panting, starting to panic, Chloe lay on her back, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. Heat and nausea suffused her body, and the tingling turned into stabbing sensations all along her limbs and sides. She could do little more than wiggle in place where she’d fallen. Every part of her body hurt. Her spine felt like it was catching on fire, and her head felt groggy. 

“What’s happening?” she whispered at the ceiling. Tears, not of grief but of agony, welled in her eyes.

Had this been some sort of failed experiment on the Almighty’s part? Was this happening because of the excess energy Azrael mentioned?

Her vision began to blur, and Chloe realized it wasn’t just from the tears. Her sight was failing. Terrified, she kept her eyes open as wide as possible, holding onto what she could see for as long as possible. 

The last things she saw were the twisted vines of the chandelier. The lights tangled within them sparkled like stars as the world went dark. 

Paralyzed and blind, unconsciousness clawed at her fogged mind and attempted to draw her away. She fought against it because it felt so different, so _ alien. _ The only thing she knew was that she wasn’t dying. She’d already learned what that felt like, and her soul remained securely in place. 

Vertigo rolled over her, shaking her tenuous hold on consciousness. She breathed Lucifer’s name on a whisper and then succumbed. 

* * *

Deep in the underworld, the king sat passively atop his throne. Although he had resumed his human form, ash covered him like fallen snow, leaving him the appearance of a gray wraith.

_ “Lucifer.” _

Hell whispered his name, rattling his bones. 

“Leave me alone,” he replied without any inflection. He lifted his right hand and flicked the ash away so that he could twist his ring with his thumb. 

Lucifer stared at the thick gray clouds covering Hell. Previously, they had churned slowly, moving at a sluggish pace. However, they were no longer placid. As he watched, they swirled urgently, spinning in a silent dance. 

A soul was caught in the cycling clouds, the orb emitting a small glow among the dank gray. Around and around the sky it traveled at a speed that he could barely track.

The soul had been caught there from the very moment Lucifer set the clouds racing. He had watched it since then, emptying his mind of all else. Eventually the patterns of movement would change, and the soul would move outward through concentric rings of wind tunnels. At some point, the soul would get caught in the funnel cap of one of the many spires, and it would slowly — oh-so-slowly — make its way down through impenetrable, twisting tubes of Hell-forged steel encased in thick layers of rock. 

By the time it reached the bottom, whatever corpse the soul had left behind would be nothing but waste, an unresponsive nervous system leaving it broken and unuseable. Demons could possess only the very recently deceased bodies of the damned. 

All in all, it was an elegant solution, he thought...and it was too bloody late. If he’d come up with it sooner, he could have been by the Detective’s side. 

He could have been there to protect her. 

Did his Father know what a treasure He’d gained when she crossed into Heaven? Would He treat her like the jewel and hero she was, despite whatever stain Lucifer may have left on her by association? 

He might never know for certain.

He sat motionless, staring at the sky and calculating the eternity that stretched before him.

_ “Lucifer, it is done,” _ Hell whispered to him, prodded him in that awful, mind-bending voice.

Lucifer closed his eyes against the searing pain in his head. “All those centuries that I tried to talk to you without receiving the slightest hint of a reply, and now suddenly you’ve turned into a chatterbox,” he muttered, bitterness dripping from his words. 

_ “You can go.” _

Lucifer didn’t move. Hell was right; nothing kept him there any longer. He could return to the world where humans lived, toiled, and played. He could resume the life he’d chosen of his own accord so long ago. 

Yet, there would be no Detective. And for that, he had no one to blame but himself. 

He stared up at the sky and felt fire burning him from the inside until it reached his exterior. He held up his hand and watched as pale flesh turned red and blunt nails transformed into black claws. 

“Do you know? I rather think I’m exactly where I deserve to be.”

Hell said no more. 

Alone again at last, the Devil was left to mourn and learn to breathe through the guilt that threatened to strangle him. 

The clouds continued to dance, like a spinning ballerina always returning to the center where she belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer? Are you sure you don't want to just...pop up to Earth for a little bit? It might do you some good. D: 
> 
> Heads up! Chapter 6 is going through a little reworking. Based on beta feedback, I decided to make adjustments. I'm going to do my very best to stick to my regular pacing and get it to you mid-week, but if I'm late, just know the delay is due to time and effort on quality control!


	6. A Really Big Damn Side Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe wakes in the penthouse, feeling terribly sore following her resurrection but otherwise intact...and then the side effects become apparent.

Chloe woke up in exactly the same spot where she fell. She came awake all at once, like a lightbulb being turned on. Her eyes opened, and she could see. 

The first thing she knew was that it was late morning, judging by the light. The second thing she discovered was that she could move again. The tingling sensation and nausea were completely gone. However, every inch of her body ached as though she’d completed a workout to end all workouts. 

Still, no workout she’d ever heard of could leave her face, nose, and even her _ ears _aching.

She carefully pushed herself up into a sitting position, although the pain made her reluctant to do so. Her muscles screamed at her to leave them alone. It then took her about two minutes to climb to her feet, using the piano bench for support along the way. 

Leaning on her elbows against the glossy surface of the piano, she got out her phone. It was almost eleven in the morning. 

She breathed slowly through her nose to try to ease the tension and pain, which unfortunately made her aware that she didn’t smell great anymore. Her skin felt itchy and sticky. She must have been sweating heavily while she was unconscious. 

The side effects of resurrection apparently sucked. 

Gingerly, Chloe made her way to the large, tiled bathroom. As she went, her muscles began to unlock themselves. She stripped off bit by bit, struggling out of her clothes in the way a small, clumsy child would do, achy limbs getting caught in the fabric. She placed her bullet necklace on a small, empty dish on the bathroom counter so that it wouldn’t get lost. Briefly, she imagined that same dish must have been where Lucifer placed his onyx ring when he took it off. 

The process of getting up and down from the toilet took a ridiculous amount of time and caused an equally ridiculous amount of pain in her legs and backside.

“Just be grateful that you’re alive and that it’s over,” she reminded herself as she limped into Lucifer’s shower. 

After she got the water up to a nice, toasty temperature, she gingerly stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain. The hot water ran over her skin and soothed her all the way down to her bones, eliciting a deep sigh of gratitude. As the water thrummed down on her from the high-pressure showerhead, it washed some of the soreness away. However, it also brought on mental clarity that Chloe wasn’t entirely prepared to handle.

Holy shit. She had died yesterday. Died and was brought back to life thanks to God and the Angel of Death. 

That was when it occurred to her: She could have asked Azrael’s advice on how to get Lucifer back from Hell. Surely the angel might have been able to offer new insights or perspectives for the case.

_ The best ideas really do happen in the shower, _Chloe thought, and she banged a fist against the shower tiles. “Dammit,” she said, frowning. All she could do was shake off the loss and move on to the next clue, like always. 

Her mind started to drift further. 

God had given her a second chance at life. 

Since the moment Chloe had learned that God was real, she’d never had any reason to feel warm, fuzzy feelings toward the Almighty — certainly she didn’t feel any joy or comforting presence from God the way that Ella did. No, instead she’d had plenty of reason for emotions more along the lines of spite and bewildered confusion about all of God’s questionable decisions and even more questionable parenting skills. 

For the first time in her existence, she found a reason to be grateful. Trixie would be able to grow up knowing her mother, but only because God saw fit to bring Chloe Jane Decker back to life. Chloe could be there for her baby girl’s most important moments. Taking that thought a step further, neither Trixie nor Chloe would exist if it hadn’t been for the blessing her mother received from Amenadiel. 

In fact, nothing would exist at all if it weren’t for God’s choice to create.

Chloe immediately shied away from that particular cliff of existentialism. She blinked and shook her head a couple of times, her short hair whisking drops of water at the shower curtain and the wall.

Putting that out of her mind, she grabbed a wash rag from the in-shower rack and began to wash off the grime. Some traces of blood still lingered on her left shoulder where it had soaked through her shirt. She scrubbed it all away and lathered her hair with shampoo. 

As she cleaned up, Chloe began to feel an irresistible urge to stretch. She started with her legs and arms, reaching them out one by one as far as she could despite the protestations of her still-aching muscles. Then she wiggled her fingers and toes and gave her neck several long rolls as water poured down the back of her head.

The stretching felt good, but physically she still felt frustrated, like something was kinked up that she couldn’t get loose. Next she twisted her torso a few times to loosen her hips and lower back. Then Chloe lifted her hands as high as they could go and arched her sternum upward, lifting her breasts. That resulted in a satisfying _ pop _in her upper back, but still she felt as though she couldn’t get loosened all the way. 

Slowly, careful of her tender joints and muscles, she held onto the shower rack and arched her back behind her. That was almost it! She just needed a little more out of the stretch! 

Holding the position, Chloe gave a little wiggle. 

Relief from the pressure and frustration suddenly swamped her, but at the very same moment, the shower curtain rustled _ loudly, _ as though someone had abruptly shoved a hand into it. 

Adrenaline spiked, and Chloe yanked the curtain halfway open. 

“Lucifer?!” she asked, but no one was there. 

“Hello?” she tried again. “Is someone there?” 

The bathroom was empty. 

Heart racing, she looked at the sink counter where she’d left her Glock and her phone. 

After a minute of hesitation, she slowly pulled the curtain back into place, but not quite all the way, leaving a sizeable gap through which she could see the door. 

She then turned back to the showerhead to reach for the conditioner, but as she moved, she heard a wet _ THWACK _ against the shower wall, despite the fact that she hadn’t touched it. 

Chloe nearly jumped out of her skin and whirled around to face the wall. 

She stared at the glass tiles as though they had personally offended her. Carefully, she ran a hand over the slick, bumpy surface. 

“Is hearing things another side effect of resurrection?” she said loudly to no one in particular. 

Of course, no one answered because no one was there. She was alone in an abandoned luxury apartment. 

She stared at the wall until suddenly the curtain rustled behind her again. 

Chloe let out an undignified shriek of terror and whirled around to open the curtain wide, but at the same time, a double _ thwack thwack _ rapped against the wall behind her. 

Grunting, Chloe scrambled out of the tub, leaving the water running in her haste. Water poured across the floor. 

_ “Lucifer!” _ she yelled, staring wide-eyed. “Your shower is _ haunted!” _

Panting with terror, wide-eyed, she stared at the shower in question for a moment, almost expecting the Devil himself to suddenly appear and say, “Gotcha!” with a big, delighted grin at his own antics. 

However, nothing else happened — no noises, no gotcha, only water falling onto the tiles. She was standing there naked staring at a running shower. 

Letting out a growl of disgust, she turned off the faucet and reached for two fluffy gray towels. One she dropped unceremoniously on the floor to absorb the water, but the other she kept for herself.

Chloe brusquely started to get her front side dry, but as she wiped the droplets of water from her midsection, something seemed wrong. The detective paused and stared at her belly. 

Her stretch marks were gone. 

Trembling, she put one fingertip to her stomach, tracing the place where the largest of the marks had once decorated her skin. 

She dropped the towel. With one hand still on her stomach, she lifted the other to her left shoulder. She touched the place below her left collarbone where Jimmy Barnes had shot her. The puckered evidence of her near-death experience was nowhere to be seen. 

Trembling, Chloe slowly began to look for every scar she could remember having. She lifted her hands in front of her face. The white knicks and marks that had been the evidence of her childhood misadventures had all been erased. 

Chloe threw her head back and pointed at the ceiling. “Any future blessing you decide to share _ really _ought to come with a detailed list of side effects! Do you hear me?” 

She received no response and only ended up feeling silly. She was standing in the Devil’s bathroom, naked as the day she was born, shouting at God. Her wet skin started to prickle with cold from the air conditioning. 

“Get it together, Chloe,” she told herself. 

She picked up the towel from where it had puddled at her feet and threw it around her shoulders, but the strangest thing happened — the towel failed to settle against her back. It almost seemed to be rucked up in the air behind her. 

She wiggled the towel, trying to get it to settle, but she met with unexpected friction as though it was rubbing against a textured surface. 

Beneath the towel, something other than fabric started tickling her sides. 

Chloe carefully padded across the wet floor to the sink and mirror and looked at herself. Behind her, the towel arched as though she had developed a large hunchback overnight. 

She put a hand up to cover her mouth in horror. Half of the towel started to slip away, and she caught a glimpse of something pale underneath it. 

All at once, she threw the towel off her back and saw…

..._wings. _ Small, bedraggled cherub wings rose up behind her. 

“WHAT THE HELL!” Chloe yelled, and she did the first thing her instincts told her to do, which was to duck down into a crouch below the level of the sink so that she couldn’t see the mirror. 

Heart fluttering wildly, she put one hand over her shoulder and the other up around behind her back from below. She searched blindly with her fingers.

She felt nothing. No little wings were sprouting from her back. All she could find was smooth, unblemished skin. 

Hesitantly, Chloe peeked up over the edge of the counter and saw herself peeking back in the mirror. Inch by inch, she rose back to her feet. All she could see in the mirror was a naked, confused woman, shivering from cold and panic. 

“Okay, apparently ‘seeing things’ goes on the list of side effects,” she groused. 

Mirrors could play tricks sometimes. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward to tap against the surface. 

As she moved, the small, soggy wings popped out of her back, just as she’d seen Lucifer’s giant, glorious wings do on the night he’d left. 

_ “Shit shit shit shit shit, oh my God, shit,” _ she chanted. Behind her, the wings shook themselves without her conscious decision, and water went flying. Droplets landed on the sink and mirror in front of her. 

“That is a really big damn side effect you left out!” she yelled hysterically at God, at Azrael, at anyone who might be listening.

Behind her, the wings folded themselves away for barely a second before popping right back out again, causing her to gasp. 

“What is going _ on?” _ she demanded. Ruthlessly, she grabbed the left wing with her right hand. It was real and solid in her grasp, the downy feathers gray and soaked from the shower. 

She could feel the wing in her hand, feel the muscles and bone structure beneath skin and wet fluff. However, she couldn’t feel her hand on the wing. She received no sensation from the wing whatsoever, even though it was clearly attached to her body. She gave a little pull on it and felt a tug at the skin on her back. 

The free wing started flapping, and the one trapped in her right hand struggled like a wild animal trying to get free of her grip.

“Holy fuck,” Chloe whispered, immediately followed by, “I need a drink.” 

* * *

The drink was a long time coming, however. She had more pressing matters to deal with, such as clothes. Getting dressed proved challenging. 

She put on her underwear and jeans, but the trouble began when she tried to put on her (lamentably blood-stained) bra. As she attempted to hook the clasp, the wings came out suddenly, and they ended up whipping the bra out of her hands and across the room like a giant rubber band. 

Then the same thing happened again, and on the third try she ended up breaking a strap. 

“Oh, screw this!” She threw the bra on the bathroom floor. “Fine, that’s just fine. Tits out it is.” She picked up her (also blood-stained) pull-over blouse, crossed her arms, and stared at the mirror, glaring at the wings and waiting for them to retract. 

They wouldn’t go away. Minutes passed, and nothing happened except for an occasional flap.

Angry, bored, and anxious, Chloe clutched the blouse in her hand and stalked out of the bathroom, heading for the bar. 

Just as she was reaching for a bottle, she heard a tell-tale whisper of sound that indicated the wings had retracted. 

“Finally!” 

Chloe put the blouse over her head and started to pull it down, but just then…

_ WOOSH! _

The wings came out. 

The right one passed _ through _the fabric that was already halfway down her right side. The left one, however, simply extended unhindered, and her blouse was rucked up her back above it. 

She tugged down. Her shirt wouldn’t budge. 

“What. The. Hell.” Chloe muttered, and she started furiously wrestling with the shirt, only to find that she was well and truly stuck. 

Was that supposed to happen, with the wing going through fabric? What if it _ wasn’t _supposed to happen, and it couldn’t be undone? Was she going to have to walk around naked for the rest of her life? Was she stuck in this half-on-half-off shirt forever? 

Chloe stopped struggling. Maybe she could cut herself out of the shirt? 

In that quiet moment of thought, she heard the whirring of machinery that meant the elevator was running. 

Wide-eyed, she stared at the closed elevator doors for a split second before running, wings and one breast exposed with her arms trapped at odd angles in the tight shirt. 

She ran for the nearest cover she thought of, which happened to be Lucifer’s bed. She barely managed to dive into the sheets and get under them before the elevator doors opened.

After a moment of silence, she heard a male voice call out. “Hello? Is someone there? You should know this is private property!” 

In her haste, she had positioned herself facing away from the door. She frowned, trying to place the voice before it came to her. 

“Patrick? Is that you?” she asked, looking over her shoulder while trying to ensure that the sheets stayed in place. Patrick stood there, along with a bouncer whose name she couldn’t remember. 

“Oh, Chloe, it’s you.” The man put a hand over his stomach, exhaling loudly. “When I checked the security access records, I thought someone had snuck in.” 

“You good, Pat?” said the bouncer in a deep, bass voice.

“Yeah, that’s the Detective,” Patrick said, and the bouncer’s eyes widened and he nodded slowly. “It’s all good. You go on ahead. I want to talk to her.” Patrick waved him off, and the bouncer departed.

Chloe whipped her head back down to the bed, her mind doing gymnastics trying to think of how to get rid of Patrick.

“Everything’s okay, really,” she said a touch too loudly. However, his footsteps approached from behind her. 

“You sure?” he asked, concern coloring his tone. “You haven’t been here in ages, and now that you’re suddenly here, you’re in bed in the middle of the day. Why aren’t you at work?”

“I came down with, uh, something.” _ A bad case of wings. _ She coughed pointedly. “Didn’t want to go home. You should probably stay back if you don’t want to catch it.” 

_ That’s right, Patrick, go away. You don’t want to catch bird flu. _

He didn’t budge, though. “It’s fine. I don’t get sick easily. It’s probably all the alcohol,” he joked half-heartedly, giving a weak laugh as he approached and stopped right next to the bed. 

Chloe peeked over her shoulder at him, trying her best to look sick. “Thank you for checking up on the place. You’ve been doing a great job.” 

Patrick smiled gently, the kind of smile that reminded her to feel broken. “It’s my pleasure, Chloe. You know, I miss him a lot, too. He really taught me a lot about business, how to take charge and run things. I wish I could ask him advice like I used to.”

She put her head back down and sighed. _ You and me both, pal. _

Then Patrick sat down on the edge of the bed...as well as the right wing hidden under the sheet. 

Chloe gasped because the skin on her back was abruptly yanked backward when the wing dipped under Patrick’s weight. Then she whimpered as she instinctively tried to pull away and couldn’t. 

Patrick mistook her sounds, though, and patted a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you crying? If you are, it’s okay. Like I said, he left a big hole around here when he flew the coop.”

That did it. Chloe’s shoulders started shaking with the hysterical laughter that she had to choke down.

The laughter, born entirely of panic and stress, made the skin at her back tug against the divine appendage attached to her body and trapped under the bartender’s ass. That thought, of course, only made her shake harder. She tried so hard to stifle her laughter that tears started coming to her eyes, and sob-like sounds escaped her mouth. 

“That’s right. Just let it all out.” Patrick continued to pat her shoulder, making little soothing “there there” noises as he did and Chloe…

...Chloe laughed into the pillow and hoped with all her might that he wouldn’t realize what was really happening. 

Eventually she quieted and snuffled into the pillow.

“Thanks, Patrick. You’re a good guy,” she choked out. _ Now would you please get the hell out? _

“I can get you something if you need. Coffee? Tea?” 

“No, don’t!” The rejection came out too hasty and loud, so Chloe took a breath and tempered her voice. “No need. I’m going to try to get back to sleep. Still not feeling well.” She sniffled and smiled blearily over her shoulder at him.

Patrick smiled at her and gave her one more warm pat on the arm before he rose. Chloe gasped in relief, the skin of her back no longer straining at the pull. 

“You get some good rest then, boss. And don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything. You’re paying me well enough for it, you know.”

“Thanks, Patrick,” she said, watching as he walked away. 

The instant the elevator doors closed behind him, Chloe sat upright in the bed, throwing the sheets off dramatically. Then she wrestled with her shirt like an octopus high on PCP, eventually removing it with a long, loud _ rrrrrip _of fabric. She threw the ruined blouse across the room with a scream of rage.

The wings chose that exact moment to retract. 

_ “REALLY?!” _

* * *

After several minutes of venting her frustrations with violent fists against pillows, Chloe attempted to put on one of Lucifer’s shirts, only to get similarly distressing results — the wings either got stuck under the shirt, or they somehow mysteriously passed through the material at odd angles, leaving it awkwardly askew. 

So she continued to scrounge through Lucifer’s closet to try to find an alternative. 

As it turned out, the Devil had an entire drawer full of scarves. She plucked out the longest one she could find, a deep navy silk thing that would reach her knees if she left it dangling from her neck. She turned it into an impromptu halter top, leaving her shoulders and other miscellaneous spots bare but covering all of the most essential pieces. 

Then she got out her phone and checked the time. It was already mid-afternoon, and she was terrified to leave the penthouse because wings might sprout out of her back if she so much as twitched the wrong way. In fact, they’d pop out even if she held perfectly still. The things seemed to have a mind of their own. She certainly wasn’t the one running the show. 

Uncertain what else to do, Chloe finally got her drink. She slammed down some whiskey, poured another helping, and drank that, too. 

The buzz never hit her. 

Some time later, disturbingly still sober after downing the entire bottle, she sat at Lucifer’s bar and sank down until her head rested on the counter. 

“Shit,” she whispered through a tightened throat. She felt small, scared, and helpless, completely lacking any sort of control. She didn’t have control of her life, her career, the celestial nonsense all around her, or even her own body.

She needed help. She needed her _ partner. _

Sniffling, she lifted a hand and put it in her hair to clutch at the strands. They were short — there wasn’t nearly as much there as she was used to. She dropped her empty hand back to the bartop. After a second, she clenched the hand in a fist and used it to push herself back up. 

So what if Lucifer wasn’t around to help? She’d lived most of her life without him. She didn’t _ need _him, she reminded herself. She wanted him back and missed him terribly (every second, every minute, all the way down to her soul she missed him), but telling herself she needed him was a lie. Of course, he would know a lot more about God-given wings than she did, so that would have been handy. But she’d managed without him for the past six months, so she would manage this, too, and she’d do it by using whatever resources and assistance she had available.

Chloe got out her phone and pulled up her contacts. Her finger hovered over Amenadiel. 

She hesitated. 

How would Amenadiel react? 

Chloe honestly didn’t know the answer to that question. She also knew from personal experience that he had no trouble bending the truth when it suited him.

She had other friends, though, and she thought about each of them. Linda had an angel baby to raise, and she was a psychologist, but that didn’t make her any sort of expert on blessings from God. And as for Mazikeen, well, the demon always wanted emotional messes kept at a distance, and Chloe was the epitome of a mess at that point. She knew better than to turn to Maze when her emotions were all over the place. 

Chloe pulled up a different contact and tapped the Call button. 

After a couple of rings, she got an answer. 

“Chloe! How are you feeling?” Ella asked. “I felt so bad that you got away from me without a hug last night.” 

“No need to feel bad about that, Ella,” Chloe reassured her, “but, um, there is something I could use your help with.” 

“Tell me what you need.” 

Chloe looked over her shoulder to double-check. The wings were still there and looking distinctly fluffy since they’d dried off. 

“I have a bit of a...situation. I need, well, I need a scientific opinion on something. And,” Chloe swallowed her pride, “and maybe that hug. How fast can you get to the penthouse at Lux?” 

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. 

“On it. Give me one hour. Is that okay? Or do you need me sooner?”

“No, that’s fine,” Chloe said. “I really appreciate it. Really.”

“Anytime. I got you. Gotta go! I’ll be there soon.” Ella hung up. 

Chloe put down her phone and sighed. An hour seemed like an awfully long time…

...and that full bottle of vodka looked like it was worth an investigation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big, big, huge thank you to my lovely beta [sutekinanijinoiro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutekinanijinoiro/pseuds/sutekinanijinoiro) for encouraging me to make some changes that really improved this chapter!
> 
> And you know what else? Sutekinanijinoiro recently posted a music collaboration she did with my other friend, geeky24! You guys, you guys, they did _My Love Will Never Die_ together and posted it [here on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914733)! And they live in _different countries._ It's truly fanmade and soooo good. I have talented friends, and it makes me happy. 💖 Please check it out? Totally worth your time, I promise!__


	7. Somewhere I Need to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella has questions, so many questions, and Chloe answers as many as she can.

The elevator gave a cheerful ding as it opened. 

“Chloe?” Ella’s voice bounced through the penthouse and out the open door. 

Chloe was sitting on floor of the balcony with her back pressed against the glass safety railing. 

“Out here, Ella!” she called without getting up. 

The young scientist approached slowly, wide brown eyes scanning over the detective as she took in Chloe’s unusual wardrobe and choice of seat. 

“Before anything else, are you okay?” Ella asked, concern etching a pattern of crinkles between her eyebrows.

At her friend’s thoughtfulness, the wings gave Chloe a little jolt as they tried to escape, but they weren’t able to pass through the glass. The detective gave a shudder as she kept them contained. 

“Nope,” Chloe replied, shaking her head. “Nope, nope, nope. Not okay.” 

“Chloe, are you drunk at four o’clock on a weekday?” the scientist asked.

Chloe glanced at the empty vodka bottle at her side, not to mention the mostly empty bottle of bourbon. “Again, nope. I really tried, but all I managed is a little bit tipsy. And to think I gave Lucifer all that crap for taking a few sips from his flask.”

At the mention of Lucifer, Ella started chewing on her lower lip.

Chloe quirked a brow at the latina. “I bet you have questions.”

Ella pulled one of the outdoor chairs over to face Chloe and took a seat. She opened her mouth to ask but then quickly shut it again. “No, no, I’m here for you, Chloe, not for me.”

Chloe gave Ella the best “no shits given” stare she could muster under the circumstances. “You’d better just ask whatever you want to ask. It’s going to come up at some point, and you need to know the details before we can even _ think _about starting on my problem. So you should just get it all out of the way.” She made a sweeping gesture with one hand.

“If Azrael really is the angel of death, is Lucifer really the Devil?” Ella finally asked in a rush.

“You bet he is.” Chloe raised the empty vodka bottle in a cheers to the dazed scientist. “Good. Next question.”

* * *

From there, the floodgates opened. Ella asked question after question, and Chloe gave the best answers she could from her limited perspective. They didn’t stick to questions though — sometimes they shared their opinions and observations on everything that had occurred.

Two hours later, Ella had her own bottle of vodka next to her and even a glass to drink from. Chloe, to her regret, was entirely sober.

“Wow,” Ella said. 

“Mmmhm, _ wow _ is a good word for it,” Chloe agreed.

“I mean, the whole massacre at the Mayan finally makes sense, so there’s that. Doesn’t make it better, but at least I get it.” 

Chloe winced and closed her eyes. “I lied to officers. I lied to the lieutenant. I lied on the police report. I lied to the _ feds.” _

“Oh man. Chloe, you gotta let that one go. I mean, yeah, lying sucks worse than uncalibrated lab equipment, but telling the truth? In this case, that would have been worse.” Ella took another swig of vodka. “I mean, _ way _worse.”

Chloe winced and nodded. “I know that logically. I still feel awful, though.” 

“Yeah, I get it,” Ella said. “So, I think I’m starting to run low on questions, at least for now, but I do have a really big one left.” 

Chloe gave her a little smile. “Fire away.” 

“What happened yesterday?”

Ella stared hard and determinedly at the detective. 

Chloe winced again. “I died. I really died, Ella. All the way. I died and left my body behind, and I was nothing more than a soul.” The remembered sensations of detachment and floating came back to her. Chloe knew the feeling of death, and the memory of it made her shiver and break out in goosebumps, made her quake from the inside and want to hide. It reminded her a lot of when she’d first seen Lucifer’s true face. 

The truths about life, the afterlife, and divinity kept popping up to smack her mental stability around. 

Tears threatened, prickling at her eyes. 

“Oh, Chloe, c’mere, I gotta hug you, girl.” Ella got up and started to approach, arms out. She took Chloe’s hand to draw the detective to her feet. 

“Wait!” Chloe quickly extracted her hand. “Wait just a second. There’s more.” Behind her, the wings tried to unfurl again but couldn’t, making her shiver and press backwards.

Ella frowned. “You keep doing that little wiggle thing. What’s going on? Are you okay?” She lowered herself to sit next to Chloe. 

“No, I’m not okay,” Chloe admitted. “Yesterday, Azrael gave me a choice between continuing on to Heaven or accepting a blessing from God. I chose the blessing, and now here I am, alive again.” She took a ragged breath. “Turns out there are a lot of additional...um, you could call them _ features... _of the blessing.” 

Ella shook her head slowly. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. After all of this? Not much is gonna shock me.” 

“You say that now,” Chloe said with raised brows and an honest laugh. “I’d better just show you. Don’t get up.” 

The detective rose to her feet, and the little wings immediately popped out of her bare back. 

_by [ZeeArts](https://zeearts.tumblr.com/)_

_ “Holy shitballs!” _

Chloe rolled her eyes and nodded simultaneously. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too.” 

* * *

After a generous gulp of vodka, as well as reassurances that Chloe had previously been human, the spirit of scientific inquiry took firm possession of Ella. She scrambled for the tablet she’d left in her bag by the elevator, as well as a pen and paper. If Chloe thought Ella had a lot of questions earlier, well, it hadn’t prepared her for the latina in full science mode. 

What were the first symptoms?   
How long did the symptoms take to develop?   
Was she still experiencing any tingling or numbness?   
How long was Chloe unconscious after she passed out?   
Could Chloe shoot laser beams with her eyes?

“No, Ella! I am not an X-Man!” 

“Okay, okay. Geez. But I think it was a fair question, all things considered.” 

Had she noticed any other side effects since the wings?   
Was she experiencing any issues with balance?  
Where did the wings go when they weren’t visible?

Chloe let Ella examine her back while the wings were retracted. The scientist ran gloved hands over the skin to either side of Chloe’s spine. “There’s definitely something there that isn’t part of normal human anatomy. It’s kind of like a pocket, maybe? However it works, it is absolutely defying the laws of physics and, y’know, regular dimensional properties of space.” 

What was Chloe’s body temperature?   
How large were the wings?

“You think Lucifer has practical things like a thermometer and measuring tape?” Chloe asked, her tone laced with sarcasm.

“He might not, but I do. I brought some stuff because when you called you said the magic word: science!”

Chloe was running a temperature of 99.9 degrees without any issues of feverishness. The wings had a span of 36.5 inches, which reached Chloe’s elbows when she stretched her arms out to either side.

How much control did Chloe have over the wings?  
Would Chloe let Ella watch the retraction and extension process up close?   
How fast could the retraction or extension occur?  
What triggered the retractions and extensions?

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be terrified of leaving the penthouse. God, how can I see Trixie like this?”

“Well, first of all, I bet Trixie would be really excited to see you with wings. Second, I promise we’ll get it figured out. Hey, why don’t you give the kiddo a call? I’m sure it’ll make you feel better.” 

They took a break while Chloe called Trixie. 

“Mom!”

“Hey, honey,” Chloe said into the phone. “How was your day at school?” 

“It was fine. I got second place in the class checkers tournament. But I lost to Sandy, so that’s really like getting first place for normal people since Sandy’s kind of a genius.”

“We should set up another playdate for you two,” Chloe suggested. 

“Maybe next weekend? Dad promised that he and I could binge on video games for this whole visit, and I’m going to kick his butt.”

Chloe smiled, the tension easing from her shoulders. Ella was right. By the time she wrapped up the call, she felt much better and more prepared to resume science-ing. 

How much weight could a wing hold up?  
How much weight could Chloe hold up? 

“What?”

“Well, you said Lucifer had a deadlift that professional bodybuilders would envy. Show me what you’ve got, chica!” 

Chloe could barely lift the corner of Lucifer’s couch. 

“Darn. Sorry about the super strength. I was really rooting for you.” 

When had Chloe last eaten?

At that question, Chloe froze, thinking rapidly. Alarm began to crawl up her spine. It made the wings unfurl, flapping wildly. Ella eyed the appendages while Chloe struggled with her realization.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” Chloe confessed quietly. “I had a sandwich at lunch.” 

Ella whistled slowly. “That’s a long time. Was it just a sandwich?” 

At Chloe’s nod, Ella continued. “And are you hungry? At all?” 

Chloe shook her head. Had something gone wrong with her from the inside during the resurrection? “I should be starving.” 

Before panic could get a firm hold of her, Ella held up a hand. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine as long as you feel okay! Hey, it could just be stress, you know? Whenever I get really wigged out or my brothers have done something especially stupid, I can forget to eat entirely.” 

Chloe looked at coffee table and the two bottles of alcohol she’d decimated. “Sure, sure. Are _ you _hungry, Ella?” 

The scientist was indeed very hungry. They took a break for dinner — Ella left for a short while to acquire food from a nearby eatery. She brought back fries and gyros for both of them so they could find out whether the sights and smells of food appealed to Chloe. The detective found that she could eat but didn’t have to, so she stopped after a few bites to avoid any unexpected reactions. They sat together on Lucifer’s cloth-covered couch, hunched over the coffee table. 

Chloe fiddled with a fry, nibbling at the edges of it. “Any scientific opinions forming yet?” she asked, uncertain what she wanted the answer to be.

Ella’s head bobbed as she chewed and swallowed. “Lots of them, but none that I feel really comfortable with yet.” She ate a few more fries as she considered things. “What’s really bothering me is your lack of sensation. If you had at least a little feeling in the wings, we could talk about working on your muscle control. Maybe your brain just needs a chance to catch up. This is going to require a lot of monitoring.” 

“Monitoring?” Chloe asked. 

“Yeah, like frequent poking to see whether anything changed, test your reflexes, that kind of thing.” She dusted salt off her fingers. “Plus continued observation and testing of hypotheses, like this.” Ella abruptly stood up. 

The wings popped out of Chloe’s back when she shifted her position. They flapped a few times, the fluffy down tickling her bare shoulders. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ella said. 

“What?” Chloe was starting to feel like a parrot who could do no more than ask _ what _repeatedly or copy whatever word Ella had just said.

Ella sat back down. “I’ve noticed that they tend to extend whenever you’re startled or you make sudden movements. There’s some sort of reflex there, which makes me think the physiology is sound. I gotta be honest, I was legitimately concerned about that. I have _ no _idea how this is supposed to work, anatomically speaking. Hey, what would you estimate Lucifer’s wingspan at?”

Chloe sucked in a breath as a fresh wave of memory hit her. _ It was you, Chloe. _

“Uhh, really hard to say. I only had a brief look before…But you know what? I can tell you for sure that each one of his wings was longer than his own height.”

“Hoo boy! And he sure was tall. _ IS _ tall. Ugh, sorry. I didn’t say that. He’s not really _ gone _gone, just in Hell, which...yeah, I’ll be unpacking that later.” The scientist’s words sputtered to a halt, and she looked down at her greasy food wrapper with a frown.

“It’s okay, Ella. I know what you meant.” And she truly did. Sometimes she caught herself making the same mistake, and it always left her angry and sad. 

“Man, I really want a blood sample and a microscope.”

“No blood samples. Too risky.”

“Pictures? For documentation purposes!”

“No way.”

Ella clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You’re no fun.” 

Chloe gave a genuine laugh at that. Behind her, the wings give a few more little flaps. 

Ella’s eyes narrowed. “Are those pinfeathers?” 

Chloe frowned and tried to look at a wing, but she could barely get them into her peripheral view. “Pinfeathers?” _ Parrot Chloe again, _ she thought in disgust. _ I’m really going to the birds. _ She had to stifle a surge of laughter.

Ella got a new pair of plastic gloves out of her bag, pulling them on. 

“Yeah, feathers start out as pinfeathers. Baby birds have down to begin with, just like you have right now. As the chicks grow, the pinfeathers come in. But I could swear I didn’t see any before.” She took ahold of the left wing and gently examined it, pushing the down around. “Yeah, those are definitely pinfeathers. And, again, I’m no expert, but I swear I didn’t miss them before, which means they’re coming in fast. Or relatively fast? I’m way out of my depth here. I’m going to need to do some research on wing anatomy and bird growth.” Ella tilted her head to the side, considering the wing for a moment. “Can you get up, please? I want to take another measurement.” 

Chloe got to her feet, and Ella got out the measuring tape. 

“Turn around,” Ella said, and Chloe showed Ella her back. 

A minute later, after some effort wrestling with unruly wings, Ella said simply, “Huh. They’re growing.”

_ “What?!” _

“Yeah! And fast. Like, _ really _fast. Your wingspan is now about about forty-two inches. You’ve gained more than five inches in the past two hours.” Ella yanked off her gloves and dove for her tablet and notepad. “Dang! I wish I’d written down what time we first measured. It’s okay, though. I’ll estimate the original time and start tracking it now.”

Chloe slumped into the couch cushions. The wings, thankfully, chose to retract, and she slouched down into the couch and closed her eyes.

Ella paused and put down the paper. She sat down more gingerly beside Chloe, waiting for her to say something.

“And the upshot of that is…?” Chloe asked, barely cracking her eyes open.

Ella made a sympathetic face. “Upshot is a little hard to say, but if the growth continues at a steady pace — which I can’t even begin to guess whether they will or not — but if it does, they’re going to be full size in roughly two days, maybe three at the most. And now I have a fairly solid theory about the whole sensation problem.”

Chloe opened her eyes the rest of the way. A bit of hope crept into her voice. “A theory?”

“Yeah. I think your nerve endings aren’t developed yet, or they aren’t hooked up somehow, and that’s a really good thing. If you _ did _have sensation? Wowzer, the growing pains would put you out of commission. Living creatures are not meant to feel themselves grow at an accelerated rate like this.”

Chloe thought of the pain she experienced when she collapsed next to the piano the night before. 

“Are you saying that when they’re done growing, I might be able to feel them?”

“That would be the best possible outcome, so yeah, fingers crossed.” 

The wings chose that moment to unfurl against the couch, jostling Chloe from her comfortable position. 

“Dammit! Why is this even happening to me?” With her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands. 

Ella put a comforting hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Hey, hey hey hey, you’re okay, come here.” And Ella, little whirlwind of optimism that she was, pulled Chloe into the hug she needed so badly. The hug didn’t have quite the right fragrance, or include the scrape of a five o’clock shadow, or involve the texture of Italian wool, but it was still of the highest quality. 

“We’ll get you through this,” Ella said as they parted. “We already know so much more than we did a few hours ago.”

“Thank you, Ella. You’re really amazing, you know that?”

“Awww, go on. For the record, you’re pretty amazing yourself,” she said with a nose wiggle. “I also think you’re handling this well. Like, shockingly well.” 

Chloe gave Ella the best smile she could at that time, which was still wobbly. “I haven’t flown off to Europe yet, so I guess that’s a sign of improvement.”

“Yeah, and maybe next time you won’t need the airplane.”

“Airplane…?” Chloe returned to being a confused parrot. 

“Uh yeah, because you’ll be able to fly.” Ella made a puppet bird by linking her thumbs together and flapping her hands. “At least in theory you will. We can’t test that until these fluffy chicken tendies of yours get bigger.”

Somehow, through all the uncertainty, stress, and shock, Chloe hadn’t yet made the connection between the wings on her back and the possibility of flying. As soon as she did, though, her mind started racing, and she could feel the adrenaline spike.

“I’m going to need to practice. A lot,” she said urgently, clutching the dust cover on the couch until it wrinkled. “Ella? How soon can I start testing for flight?” 

Ella’s eyes widened, and a smile spread across her face. “What do you mean, when can _ you _ start testing for flight? We’re doing this together. I’m the first scientist in _ history _to get to study actual proof of divine intervention! You’re not going anywhere without me. You aren’t, are you?” Ella gave Chloe the biggest, saddest puppy eyes she had ever seen, which was saying something considering Trixie’s abilities.

“Of course not,” Chloe said with a smile. “Besides, I have a feeling I’ll be able to get up in the air a lot faster with your help.”

“You’re really keen to get flying all of a sudden.” 

“Yeah. There’s someplace I need to be.” The words came out hard, slicing through the conversation like a cold blade.

Ella stared at her for a long moment before slowly shaking her head. “You’re crazy. Absolutely _ loco! _ You’re thinking of going to Hell, aren’t you? To get Lucifer back? Do you really think he’d be okay with that?”

Chloe scoffed. “Not his choice, and he’s not here to stop me.” Chloe cut a sharp look at Ella. “Besides, is it really okay with you if we just leave him there? In Hell? Dealing with vicious demons and the worst of humanity?”

The reality of it seemed to physically hit Ella then, and she jerked backwards as though jolted. “Whoa, heavy. I mean, I know you told me he went back, but I didn’t think of him...suffering. Yeah, no, that’s not okay. I’m so not down with that. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“Then you’ll help me?” Chloe asked.

Ella sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Hooo boy. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. Yes, I’ll help you learn how to fly so you can go to Hell and break out your boyfriend, Lucifer, who happens to be the Devil.” Ella slowly crossed herself and looked upward. “Big Guy, you’d better not have any objections. You and I need to have a long talk sometime soon. And I mean a loooong talk.” 

Chloe snorted. “Right, but save that for later. First we need to make some plans.”

* * *

Lucifer wasn’t certain how long he had been sitting on his throne — tracking the time variance between Hell and the earthly plane held no meaning for him any longer. 

After a while, even his Devilish form slipped away, leaving him pale beneath the falling ash. He was simply too empty, too worn away on the inside to maintain the powerful, crimson visage. 

Instead, he stared silently at the sky or the land. Whether in the swirling gray clouds above him or in the dank chambers beneath him, guilty souls rode the endless cycles of their suffering, regardless of anything that happened elsewhere in the vast expanse of the universe. 

Nothing changed in Hell, not really — not in any way that mattered. Although Lucifer had made the land tremble and bend to his will, there would be no escaping his loss. It was simply the inevitability of a mortal life. 

A window. A brief window of time was all he could ever have hoped for. And oh how he had _ hoped, _ like burning fire, like the power of forged stars. 

Yet he’d lost that tiny window because of his own failure. 

Chloe had died alone. She hadn’t even been able to speak in her final moments due to the bullet lodged in the sloped column of her neck.

_ I belong here, _ his grief told him.

Sometimes when staring at his gray world became too much, he closed his eyes. 

He existed, and he deserved his Kingdom of Hell, and yet...

Somewhere out there, a small part of his Detective lived on in youthful, curious brown eyes and a fearless spirit that could befriend a demon. 

Somewhere, his brother and his doctor were raising his nephew, and his best torturer was growing into something far beyond her original design. 

Visions of life yet to be lived flashed before his eyes. Smiling faces, adventures and misadventures, and many new discoveries about all the curious humans.

_ I don’t deserve those things, _ his grief swore to him.

Nothing in Hell ever really changed, but Lucifer had left Hell and lived outside of it and outside of Heaven. 

_ “Lucifer, you need to forgive yourself.” _

He must have fallen into a state of dreaming at some point because he startled awake so suddenly that he nearly fell off his throne, white wings suddenly unfurling to regain his balance, flapping madly. The layer of ash that had gathered on him fell down in a dusty cloud. He ended up clutching tightly to one armrest with his hands, while his wings hugged around the stone structure and his heart tried to regain a normal rhythm. The King of Hell had never looked like such a right git as much as he did in that moment. 

He gave a quick, harsh laugh at himself and pulled himself up to stand on the seat. 

What would the Detective say if she saw him then? What would any of those in his inner circle say? Surely Linda would say something wise about finding humor even in the darkest moments of life.

As he stood there, another memory came back to him. 

_ “Are you sure that you got proper closure with Chloe?” _ he could hear the good doctor say, her earnest voice urging him to action.

Lucifer considered that. He turned it over slowly in his mind, and it rang true. 

He looked at the jagged rocks below. 

Lucifer needed closure — he needed to make certain that Chloe was taken care of in the manner she deserved. 

He spread his wings and rose into the air. 

As he flew, he felt Hell forming a question. Before it could speak, however, he shouted downward to forestall it. 

“I have somewhere I need to be!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, Lucifer, where are you going?! 😨
> 
> For the chapter title, I also considered "The Magic Word: Science" and "Sorry about the Super Strength."


	8. Back on the Rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Ella go on a road trip in the name of science. 
> 
> Lucifer takes a road trip as well, but his travels are of a significantly more inter-dimensional nature.

“I feel silly.” 

“I don’t care.”

The heartless scientist threw another rock at her. 

To be fair, it was a very small rock, and Ella threw it wide enough that it could never have hit Chloe, but it still made the detective flinch and shift in place where she balanced on one leg atop a rock. The large wings at her back flapped reflexively, and although she still couldn’t feel them, she could tell that they helped to keep her from pitching over. 

In less than a full day, the wings had more than doubled in size. Chloe still had zero conscientious control over them. 

At that moment, Chloe and Ella occupied an out-of-the-way corner of Point Mugu State Park. And Ella was tormenting Chloe for sport, although she claimed that everything she did was to help her. 

The latina threw another pebble at Chloe, and the detective stumbled off the rock.

“Isn’t there some other way we could do this?” Chloe asked. “You realize I know the guy who runs Hell, right? I don’t think he’d appreciate you being mean to me.” 

It was the first time she’d been able to joke about it since — well, actually, it was the first time. 

Ella raised her eyebrows. “Yeaaah. I’d like to be intimidated, but I met the guy you’re talking about, and he’s a goofball. Plus he’s got a soft spot for me, as much as he tries to deny it. Besides, this is for science! C’mon, back on the rock, Daniel-san. Crane stance.”

Chloe glared. “This is not _ Karate Kid, _ and you are not Mr. Miyagi.” Regardless, she got back on the rock and balanced on her other leg. 

Ella tossed a pebble in the air a couple of times, catching it repeatedly. “Keep on telling yourself that, Chloe.”

The detective sighed and resigned herself to Ella’s not-so-tender care.

The previous night, they had gone their separate ways to their own homes to make arrangements and pack. That morning, Chloe had struggled to wake — her bed was comfortable, and sleep had an unusually firm hold on her. She’d tried three times to get out of bed but succeeded only when Ella sent a message that she was on her way. When Chloe stumbled groggily to her bathroom mirror, the wings abruptly unfurled in a scraggly display of mixed feathers and down, startling her into full wakefulness. They filled her bathroom, knocking towels off racks and bumping against the walls. The wings had some proper feathers, but down still clung to them in large, patchy swatches of white fuzz. 

She stared at them, dumbfounded. The undersides were mostly pale, but they weren’t perfectly white, as she remembered Lucifer’s being. The feathers showed some pale gray stripes decorating the lower edges, and when she craned to see the backs of the wings, she discovered a mix of bright honey coloring with some pewter gray spots peeking through white down. 

When Ella arrived, she promptly geeked out over the new feathers for several minutes before conducting wing measurements for the morning. Then the two of them had trundled north in Ella’s car to get to Newbury Park, where they “borrowed” a mobile home that belonged to one of Ella’s cousins. 

“He works on cruise ships and is gone for weeks at a time,” the scientist explained. “He lets me use the place when I want.” 

The residence wasn’t much to speak of, but it would serve them well enough as a home base. Barely an hour after they’d arrived and set down their things, they headed for the nearby park lands, which were spacious and beautiful, full of rolling hills, fresh air, and the natural browns and muted greens of the California landscape. 

The sound of a pebble hitting dirt shook Chloe from her thoughts.

“Did you just throw something?”

“Uh huh. You aren’t even paying attention anymore.” Ella walked up to Chloe with a thoughtful look on her face. Then she placed both palms on Chloe’s middle and gave a gentle shove. 

Chloe glared down at her but tried to hold firm on her position. Behind her, the wings flapped madly. How were they even doing that? Chloe looked at them, distracted, and she nearly lost her balance. 

“Just stay focused on me,” Ella instructed. Chloe let out an annoyed groan but turned her attention back to front. 

After more than a minute, Ella relented with an impressed nod and let go. “Nice.” 

However, the release of pressure caused Chloe to stumble off her perch. “Whoa, geez, a little warning next time!” 

Ella shrugged. “No promises.” She picked up her notepad from where she’d dropped it on the ground and jotted a few things down. “Were you able to feel _ anything _from all of that? It was the most sustained movement we’ve been able to achieve so far.”

Chloe shook her head. “Nothing but wind in my hair. The only reason I know they’re even attached to me is because I can see them and they bump into things.” 

Ella gave her a dubious look. “I’ve been thinking. Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to talk to Amenadiel?” 

Chloe thought of the angel in question. “Look, I’m barely holding myself together, and I don’t think I could handle Amenadiel on top of that. From everything I’ve seen, he tends to overreact and do what he thinks is best without consulting others. If you ask me, he has more in common with Lucifer than either of them likes to admit.” 

“Um, pot kettle? You’re kind of not consulting him.” 

That stung, but Chloe shook it off, both figuratively and literally. The wings behind her gave a rustle. “Okay, fine, but I plan to talk to him later. For now, I’m consulting _ you _because I need someone methodical. I need that big brain of yours, Ella.”

It was clearly the right thing to say. Ella perked up considerably. “Ella Lopez, scientific consultant to angels. I’m down with that.” She started scribbling notes furiously. 

Chloe blinked. It required some effort for her to digest Ella’s words. 

“I’m not an angel,” Chloe denied adamantly. Then, relenting, she added, “But I’m not human anymore, am I?” 

At that, Ella looked up, concern and sympathy written into her frown. “I could tell you specifics if you let me take a blood sample, but my best guess? Strictly speaking, you’re probably not. Entirely human, I mean.” She fiddled with her pencil.

“Then what am I?” The question burst out of her, sounding like anger but actually made entirely of fear. 

Ella came and stood directly in front of her, giving Chloe her best “I mean business” look.

“You’re Chloe Decker, bad-ass detective, apparently a miracle baby, partner to the Devil, mother of Trixie, and also the very first person in my life who truly accepted me, even when I said things that sounded cray-cray at the time, which turned out to be totally _ not _cray-cray.” Ella shrugged a little helplessly. “You were always one of a kind. All of this resurrection and wing business? The way I see it, this is all just a small part of the bigger picture. You’re still you.” 

Chloe shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t feel like it, though. It feels like...like I’m losing myself.” Her voice broke, cracking like a hairline fracture through the center of a china plate. 

Ella, however, gave her a grimace. “Okay, look, think of it this way: Officer Joe Schmoe loses his leg in the line of duty. Oh no, he has to retire. Is he still Joe?” 

“Yes, of course he is,” Chloe said automatically. 

“Okay, so Officer Janeway gets shot and gains wings in the line of duty. Is she still Janeway?” 

The detective’s internal bullshit meter started to ping. “I don’t think these two situations are exactly equivalent, Ella,” she said with a side-to-side shake of a finger. 

Ella brightened, a big smile on her youthful face. “See, that right there? All of that attitude? That means you’re exactly the Chloe Decker I know and love.”

Chloe opened her mouth wide to fire back but abruptly stopped and shut it. “Okay, now you might have a point.” 

Ella gave her a smug smile and went back to jotting notes. Chloe thought she heard her mutter something about “mood swings,” but Chloe shook her head and decided to ignore it.

Chloe felt the tension and energy drain out of her. Suddenly she could barely keep her eyes open. Chloe pulled out her phone to check the time; they’d been at the park for two hours.

“I think I need some downtime.” 

Ella narrowed her eyes. “Are you feeling tired? Low energy? That would make sense with the crazy growth rate.”

“Yeah, I’m actually —” A big yawn interrupted her. 

“Wow, okay, point taken,” Ella said. “Apparently a human going through the equivalent of angelic puberty is exhausting. Let’s get you back to the trailer before you pass out. And just for my peace of mind, would you eat a trail bar? It’s freaking me out that you’re not hungry but suddenly getting tired.”

Chloe mumbled agreement and didn’t have any fight left in her to call out the puberty comment. Together they wrestled with the wings until they retracted, at which point they strapped Chloe into a backpack to prevent unexpected unfurling. As soon as they were good to go, Chloe munched on a chocolate-covered granola bar and followed Ella back to the hiking trail and from there to the car. 

Moments after buckling herself into the passenger seat, Chloe fell asleep. 

She dreamed about flying. 

* * *

Lucifer flew endlessly, tirelessly, climbing ever higher through the space between realms. The borderland was neither Heaven nor Hell, nor was it even the universe where humanity lived and evolved. 

Perhaps it was inaccurate to say that he flew, however. Out there amidst the half-formed void, there was no atmosphere, no air, and no gravity. Rather than flying, he propelled himself with divine energy and used his wings to steer. 

He dodged broken planets, and dim stars lit his way. The planets were his father’s rejects, test subjects played with and discarded. Similarly, the stars were his own culls, his earliest attempts to light the sky before he really got the knack for it. The scraps littered the borderland haphazardly, with no thought to organization, no kinetic force, and no spark of life. 

They reminded Lucifer of Beatrice’s room, toys scattered about at the end of a day of play. 

At the thought of the young urchin, Lucifer missed a wingbeat, faltering in his progress.

Best not to think of the offspring. He had no business wondering how the diminutive human would take the news of her mother’s death, nor whether Detective Douche would be up to the task of comforting her while dealing with his own compounded grief. 

Lucifer flew harder, determination guiding him forward, anger sustaining him. 

_ I should have been there. _

His thoughts seemed to echo through the junkyard of creation or perhaps merely in his own mind.

He needed more speed, enough to outrun the past, outrun memory, outrun time. 

Were he still his original self, from ancient times, exceeding the limitations of the borderlands would be effortless, without challenge. It had been, back when he came here to work and create alongside his Father and Michael. 

The easy paths had long since been shut to him. 

He wanted to speak, to curse, to shout, but in space, silence ruled.

Lucifer reached deeper and called forth the Light. It resisted him for a moment, but he willed it forth, and Lucifer became the Light. He moved as the Light moved, and he pierced through the edge of the wasteland. 

But of course he ended up underwater the moment he broke through the barrier.

Lucifer thrashed for a moment, disoriented, but then he let the buoyancy of the crystal-clear water direct him to the surface. He came out of the water and gasped in the pure, perfect air, which tasted faintly like cane sugar and sun-ripe strawberries.

“What a moronic place to put a lake!” Lucifer shouted at no one in particular, because there was no one in particular anywhere nearby. 

What was nearby, however, was a shore. While still treading water, Lucifer was forced to fold away his sodden wings, which caused him to give a revolted shudder. The wet wings squishing in their discrete pouches in his back felt particularly nasty, like wearing wet jeans and then having to put on a second pair of drenched jeans on top of them.

“How to effectively waterboard the Devil...” he complained as he swam, “...just get his ruddy wings wet.” 

He’d have to remember that trick for the next time he saw Amenadiel. Even though another millennium or two might pass before he saw his brother again, it would be worth the wait.

Eventually, his feet touched sandy bottom, and he dragged himself out of the crystal clear waters and onto a beach that shimmered like crushed pearls. Curiously, he held up a hand covered in the sand and considered it, rubbing it between his fingers for a moment. It did indeed appear to be crushed pearls, or opal, or something along those lines but of a more heavenly equivalent. 

Lucifer shook his head. “And people think _ I’m _ostentatious.” He dusted his hands off on his dark, soggy attire. His shoes and socks were hopeless, so he simply took them off. His leather armor he removed and used as a sling to carry his footwear.

Then he unfurled his wings and gave them a vigorous shaking. Upon observing the state they were in, he let out an indignant snort. He’d be grounded until they dried, and on top of that they needed a thorough grooming. 

“Right. Nothing for it,” he said and started walking. 

The sandy beach blended seamlessly into an expansive field, where each blade of grass shone like an emerald and felt cool and soft against his feet and ankles. The expanse of the field seemed to Lucifer too perfect, unnatural. It lacked the songs of insects and birds, and the scent of the breeze reminded him not at all of the salty shores of LA. The experience seemed more like observing a painting on a wall rather than walking on the Earthly world. 

Time passed, and still Lucifer continued to trudge through the field, though he never grew tired. In fact, he could feel his energy levels replenishing, his mind becoming sharper and more alert with every step. 

He began to notice human souls, each of them in their purest, most basic state and looking like golden orbs. They bobbed along the same route that he was taking, albeit at a more sedate pace.

The Detective would have come this way at some point on her final journey. 

Lucifer set his jaw and looked around. He spotted a particularly slow-moving soul trailing through the grass at his right. He put down the clothes he was carrying

“Hello, there. You seem to be taking your time. Perhaps you ate a few too many Ho Hos during your stay on Earth, did you?” Lucifer plucked the soul out of the grass. It struggled and wiggled in his hand.

“Yes, yes, you don’t want to be interrupted by the big bad Devil. Don’t worry. I was actually thinking of giving you a little boost!” 

That said, he hurled the little orb toward its destination with a pitcher’s poise and form that would have easily landed him a major league baseball contract. 

Lucifer gave a short laugh at the sight of it, a golden speck disappearing into the distance. With a grin, he opened his arms and looked at the small handful of other souls near him. “Any other takers? C’mon, it’ll be fun!” 

The souls carefully bobbed away from him. 

Lucifer huffed. “Spoil sports.” 

* * *

Over the exceedingly long stretch of time since his calamitous fall from Heaven, Lucifer had imagined returning in thousands upon thousands of different ways. His reveries sometimes featured triumphant arrivals with the sound of his Father’s lamenting apologies echoing across the skies, and other times he envisioned devastating wars between demon and angel factions, depending on his mood. Happy endings, brutal and ruthless endings, heartbreaking endings — he had imagined them all, every last possibility. 

Or so he had thought. 

Not one of his musings had ever involved him walking up to the entrance of Heaven, barefoot, damp and bedraggled, and simply finding no one there to stop him. 

Frowning and nervous, Lucifer halted and looked to his right and left. All around him, little human souls slowly made their way through the open passage. On the other side of the passage, the field continued to stretch beyond where his eyes could see. Two columns framed the gateway, and to either side of them a white wall stretched to infinity. There were no gates — and at last, Lucifer remembered that there never had been. Somehow, the stories whispered by the humans about there being a gate must have sunk into his consciousness so deeply that he had simply accepted it as the truth. Perhaps he had assumed that the closed gates had been created after his fall, designed specifically to keep him out.

Slowly, with his heart hammering, Lucifer put down the bundle of clothes he carried. Then he stepped forward to the massive archway and halted just before going through. Souls continued to enter to his right and left. 

Panting, terrified, he lifted a hand and stretched it forward right next to a soul, matching its pace. 

The soul went through. His hand encountered an unseen wall, bumping against it with a hollow sound like a drum.

Lucifer laughed, and it sounded hysterical to his own ears. 

“Well played, Dad, _ well played,” _ he yelled, baring his teeth.

Adrenaline abruptly crashing, Lucifer shook his head, turned around and sat down in the soft bed of grass at his feet. With a sigh and another bitter laugh at his own foolishness, his stupidity, he leaned back against the invisible wall. 

“You know why I’m here!” he shouted, carelessly throwing his words over his shoulder at his lost homeland and people. “And you also know good and well that I’m not going to leave until I know for sure….”

Lucifer halted and stared for a long time at the radiant sky above. 

When he continued, he spoke in his first tongue, his native language and the first of them all. The words hurt his throat, made it burn.

“Tell me she is well, and that she is beloved as one of Heaven’s finest heroes. Tell me that her association with me has not made her presence begrudged in any way. When I know this, I will be gone and darken your doorstep no more. I swear it.” 

Lucifer closed his eyes and simply breathed for a long while. 

“I also have it on the highest authority that I can be _ very _annoying when I want to be,” he yelled, once more speaking in English. “I’ll leave it to your imagination whom I consider to be the highest authority these days, but anyone over there in Silver City Central can feel free to come down and ask me personally if they’re curious!”

With that said, he spread his wings to their fullest extension and used them to give a mighty _ SMACK _ backwards against the barrier. 

The sound resonated like a gong struck in the center of a vaulted cathedral. The thunderous echo of it startled even him, causing him to shake his head and laugh in delight. 

Oh, this had _ possibilities. _

“Lovely,” he muttered aloud, grinning. 

Thus the Devil set up a ruthless assault on any listening ears in Heaven. For a while, he used a lack of rhythm that suited his irascible mood, but inevitably he fell into Queen’s “We Are the Champions” at some point. After that it became a game to him to see what modern songs could translate into echoing drum beats across the Heavenly skies. 

He had completely lost himself in his new amusement when he heard a familiar voice come from behind him.

“Man, I do not know what is wrong with you, but if you left your sense of rhythm back on Earth, I am not the guy who’s gonna help you get it back.” 

Shocked to be greeted by someone so soon, Lucifer quickly turned around without rising. A slender black man wearing casual clothes stood there, his hands folded in front of him, a smile in place. He appeared young, perhaps in his mid-twenties.

Then Lucifer placed the voice with the face.

“Father Frank?!”

A grin broke out on the man’s bearded face. “In the spirit, as you can see.” He spread his arms wide as if to show himself off. 

Tears sprang to Lucifer’s eyes, and he had to blink them back. “You look..._ young. _ Is that part of the package deal? Spa day in Heaven makes you look youthful and perky again?” 

Father Frank Lawrence laughed easily. “Something like that. You, however, look like something the cat dragged in. And it was a really _ mean _cat.” 

Lucifer scoffed. “A hellcat maybe, and believe me, you don’t want to mess with them. How...how are you, Father Frank?” 

The other man smiled kindly at him. “I’m just Frank these days. Mind if I join you?” He stepped through the archway and indicated the grass beside Lucifer.

Lucifer raised his eyebrows in surprise. “By all means.” 

Frank sat with his legs folded. “To answer your question, I’m doing very well. This is everything I could have ever hoped for. Found my baby girl, too, and she was a sight for sore eyes, let me tell you. I still find little ways to look out for Connor, too. The boy needs a helpful nudge now and then.” 

Lucifer, however, just stared at the man, memories flooding him. He couldn’t help a reflexive visual check of the other man’s chest, where he’d been shot and where Lucifer had watched in helpless panic as he’d bled out. 

“You look out for Connor? _ Look out _ for him? But that little twerp was the reason you got shot and killed by a pretentious white collar drug dealer.” Lucifer reconsidered that and then shook his head in denial. The echo chamber inside his mind grew louder with static. “No, that’s wrong. It wasn’t Connor’s fault. It was mine. My Father put you in my path, and it lead to your _ murder.” _

Poison again, poison always.

But Frank merely looked at Lucifer with a bemused and dismissive smile. “Yes, he put me in your path. He also put me in my girlfriend’s path, and we had a beautiful daughter together. He put me in Connor’s path so I could help him when he needed it the most. He put me in the path of Arrieta and the Spider so they wouldn’t go unchallenged and unchecked. You see, Lucifer, we’re all put together because none of us are meant to be alone. We encounter each other so we have opportunities for something greater, sometimes even finding new paths. It’s a long-term plan, and it’s still in progress.”

Lucifer glared. “Still sermonizing at me, padre? Lovely, you’re even more of a zealot now than you were before.” 

Frank chuckled. “Sorry. I still have some old habits that I’m apparently not ready to let go. And I’m pretty sure you didn’t come all the way here just to chat with me.”

“I didn’t, I’m afraid,” Lucifer replied. “However, I wish...I truly wish we’d had a bit more time to talk. Back on Earth, that is. But since I didn’t get that, I will say that I’m glad that I get to see you again and that you’re well. Not to mention less wrinkly, like you’ve had a good hot steam press.” 

They laughed together, and the joy on the other man’s face was something to behold. It was also far, far out of Lucifer’s reach. 

Lucifer continued. “There is something I came here for, though. You see, I actually need to ask a favor of you.” At that point, Lucifer ran into a mental brick wall, considering his options. “However, I’m at a bit of a loss. I don’t know what I could possibly offer you that my Father hasn’t already. Oh dear. I just realized I’ve never had a situation quite like _ this _before.” 

Frank shrugged casually. “The way I see it, I owe you one. You investigated Arrieta, which is what ultimately saved Connor, and that was everything I could have asked for.” 

“But, you see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Lucifer said. “I wasn’t investigating Arrieta. I was trying to find dirt on you, but you foiled my plans, you squeaky clean ingrate.” 

Frank laughed again, slapping his thigh. “Call it whatever you like, but the result’s the same. I got my favor. So, tell me, what can I help you with, Lucifer Morningstar?” 

Hope began to bubble up in Lucifer’s chest, but he carefully packed it back down again. “Nothing too drastic, I don’t think. I just need to know the general status of a particular soul, one who would have arrived here not that long ago. At least I don’t think it was long ago. Time is a tad difficult to keep track of between just two dimensions, let alone four.” 

“I see. And who is this person you flew all the way to Heaven just to check in on?” 

It took him a moment before he could say her name. “Chloe Decker.” 

“That detective you were with? Really? Huh, that’s a shame.” Frank rose to his feet and swiped at nonexistent dust on his pant legs. Lucifer also got to his feet. “But I think I can help. Or rather, I think I know the right person to talk to.” 

Lucifer opened his mouth to protest, but Frank cut him off. 

“_ Not _ your Father. I’m telling you, Lucifer, you need to relax. You’re too tense. It’s no wonder your rhythm has gone to crap.”

Lucifer smiled. “I see you haven’t gotten so high and mighty that you’ve given up hitting below the belt. Good for you.” 

Lucifer extended his hand. Frank looked at the offered hand in surprise for a brief moment but then shook it with a broad, genuine smile. 

“Thank you, padre,” Lucifer said, his chest aching as though he could feel an echo of the bullet that had ended the other man’s life. 

“Take care, Lucifer,” Frank said in return, and he walked back through the gates of Heaven. 

Lucifer watched him walk away until the man started whistling “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” 

_ “Really?”_ Lucifer shouted after him. “You couldn’t have left well enough alone?” 

The former priest merely waved without turning around, but Lucifer could tell his shoulders were shaking.

With a sigh, Lucifer resumed his seat, stretching his long legs out in front of him and staring at the sky. His mind drifted, wandered, unable to settle on any thought for more than a fleeting moment. 

Finally, his brain caught on one idea and stuck to it fast, as though trapped: He hadn’t known that souls would look younger in Heaven. Would Chloe look the same as she’d always appeared since he’d met her? Or would she be more youthful, a version of Chloe he had never met before?

He closed his eyes, and he must have fallen prey to weariness because the next thing he knew, he heard someone cough pointedly behind him. He woke to discover himself slumped to one side, partially buried in one of his own unkempt wings. 

Dimly, he realized he probably had feather-prints on his face. 

With one hand, he used the invisible wall for balance as he got to his feet to see who had woken him. 

An altogether unassuming man stood there. He looked vaguely familiar to Lucifer. His lips wore a sort of permanent half-smile, and his chin showed off a clever little dent. He was attractive, just the sort of man that Lucifer would once have singled out at Lux for special attention, including a free drink at a minimum and possibly an invitation to his penthouse depending on the other’s preferences. Yet as Lucifer made a scan of the man’s frame, something niggled at the back of his mind. 

The man gave another cough, uncertainty written in his posture. “Hi. Frank Lawrence got in touch with me, said you could use a hand with something. Actually, I heard the commotion you were making earlier. I’d have come sooner, but I was a little busy already.” 

“Not to worry. You’re here now, and I do appreciate that,” Lucifer said, but he couldn’t stop staring at the man, glancing at him up and down and feeling baffled. “I’m sorry, but do I know you from somewhere? Somewhere on Earth, I mean, not up here, obviously. I could swear I’ve seen your face before. Then I thought maybe I might recognize the rest of you, but alas, no, your physique isn’t familiar, so I’m _ fairly _certain we never had sex.” 

The man’s eyebrows rose, crinkling his forehead. 

“Well, you’re right about that. We’ve never had sex.” 

Lucifer tilted his head, apprehension starting to creep up on him. “And do you have a name, or shall I simply refer to you as Guy-I-Never-Laid?” 

The man crossed his arms. 

“I think you’d better stick to calling me John Decker.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. When rewatching the episode "A Priest Walks into a Bar" (s1ep9), the most heartbreaking scene for me is actually the moment when Father Frank first meets Lucifer and extends his hand, only for Lucifer to deny him that simple courtesy and respect. On rewatch, that moment hurts my heart so badly, just knowing how much Lucifer will come to appreciate Father Frank in such a short amount of time. So I wanted Frank to get his handshake at last. 😭
> 
> 2\. Random fun fact: I outlined this whole story before I started writing. John Decker was not in my original outline. When I got to this chapter, I realized I really, really wanted to add him. 😃


	9. God's Seat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe wakes in someone else's bed, covered in feathers. That won't be the strangest thing to happen to her during the course of the day — not by a long shot.

When Friday morning rolled around, Chloe didn’t want to open her eyes, but someone was insistently banging at the bedroom door. 

“Chloe! C’mon, Chloe, I’ve been knocking forever, and I was banging around in the kitchen before that,” Ella called through the door of what was distinctly _ not _Chloe’s own bedroom. Even without opening her eyes, Chloe could tell that everything smelled wrong. And something was tickling her skin all over. She gave a tiny whimper of resistance.

“I’m serious, Chlo. I’m starting to get worried,” Ella said. “If you don’t respond soon, I’m coming in.” 

Chloe grumbled but couldn’t even open her eyes. Memories started coming back to her. They were staying in a trailer belonging to Ella’s cousin, Tadeo. 

“That’s it, I’m coming in!” Ella warned. 

Chloe heard a creek as the door opened, followed quickly by…

“Holy _ shitballs, _ it’s like a feather bomb went off in here!” 

At that, Chloe opened her eyes to find that she could see only white and gold. In alarm, she bolted upright, sending loose feathers flying off of her. 

“What’s going on?” Chloe looked around the room and found the entire space littered with feathers. In the small room, they covered every surface, and the floor looked like it was probably ankle-deep in plumes of white, gold, and gray. “Holy shitballs is right. Am I _ molting?” _ She looked over a shoulder, but the wings remained tucked away.

“You either molted or massacred an entire pillow factory,” Ella responded with wide eyes. “That’s going to be a fun cleanup job at some point. But for now, up and at ‘em.” Ella clapped her hands sharply. “It’s time for breakfast with a side of science!” 

Chloe groaned and contemplated curling back up in the pile of feathers on the bed. 

“And I made extra-strong coffee for you,” Ella said, deftly wielding the only motivator that could get Chloe moving just then.

Chloe grumbled again but waded through soft feathers and sharp, pokey feather shafts to make her way to the bathroom. 

Later, after Chloe had gotten dressed and enjoyed several life-giving slurps of coffee, Ella deemed it safe to approach her with measuring tape in hand. 

“Hey, hot wings, flash me some feathers if you have any left on you,” Ella said. “It’s that time again.” The scientist then patted the center of Chloe’s back, which up until that point had invariably caused the desired reaction of dramatic unfurling. 

However, the wings didn’t budge. 

Chloe froze, waiting for a belated _ woosh _of displaced air that normally accompanied the appearance of the wings. It never came. 

“Huh,” Ella said. She patted Chloe’s back again but with the same lack of results. 

“They’re not gone, are they?” Chloe demanded sharply. She had plans for those wings — they were her best hope of recovering her lost Devil. It made her head spin to think of going through all of what she’d experienced in the past few days only to have them disappear.

“Noooo, not gone,” Ella said, running her hand over Chloe’s uncovered back. Chloe had opted to wear a brown, low-backline halter top. “I can tell they’re in those funny, completely mind-boggling pouches, but they don’t appear to want to come out and play. You know, I still can’t get over how there isn’t even a seam in your skin to indicate an opening. It’s just...otherworldly.” 

“Welcome to my life,” Chloe muttered into her coffee mug. “You know what? We’re going to roll with the assumption that this is going exactly as it should. I am not going to freak out. You are not going to freak out, and we’re going to get ready to go out into the wilderness just like we planned.” 

Ella came around and sat across the table from Chloe. “I’m not freaking out. I don’t have time to freak out. Time that could be spent freaking out should be spent figuring out.” 

With some concern, Chloe took note of the shadows under her friend’s eyes. “Ella, are you getting enough sleep?” 

She grimaced and shrugged. “Eh? Probably not. Hard to sleep properly when my mind’s racing so much. Y’know, one of the absolute coolest friends I have turns out to be the Devil. My other friend _ died _ and came back to life and was re-engineered by the Big Guy upstairs. And my _ other _other friend is now a mom to a nephilim. Oh, and I have a demon friend. The world has gotten really freaky in the past week.”

Chloe nodded and sipped her coffee. 

“You think Lucifer’s cooler than I am?” she asked, completely deadpan.

Ella looked at her in alarm, prepared to mollify her and soothe an unintentionally bruised ego, but then she noticed Chloe’s expression and laughed. 

“Well, he has some pretty stiff competition for the ‘coolest friend’ position lately.” Ella grinned. “I mean, have you _ met _Linda?”

Chloe let out a belly laugh at that. It felt good, like a release, a relief. It was a reassurance that even though certain things — _ big _things — had changed, her bonds with the people who matter to her were still strong.

“I gotta admit, Linda is pretty cool,” Chloe said as she wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes. 

Ella grinned and then smacked one palm definitively against the table. “Right. You finish your coffee while I at least get a start on cleaning up feathers, and then we’ll go get breakfast. I know a great taqueria near here that serves breakfast, and I am craaaving chorizo and eggs.” She got up and made to head into the bedroom.

Alarmed, Chloe said, “A restaurant? I can’t, I...I don’t have control. And we don’t know what’s going on with them right now.”

“It’s okay! We’ll get it to go. You can wait in the car while I go in.” Ella gave her a reassuring smile. 

Chloe smiled back hesitantly. “I’ll treat.” 

Ella bobbed her head in agreement. “Sure thing.” Then she got out a trash bag and went to do battle in the bedroom. 

Chloe’s hands clenched on her coffee mug. 

That was the real crux of it all, she realized. The changes bothered her less than the fact that she was trapped because she couldn’t trust her own body to behave. She was forced to hide, and she didn’t know for how long. Would she be able to pick up Trixie from school without converting her classmates and teachers to religious devotees? And what if she went to work on Monday only for the wings to sprout and accidentally clock a co-worker who was standing too close?

The detective looked up at the ceiling. “Would an instruction manual _ really _be too much to ask?” 

No answer was forthcoming. All Chloe could hear were the rustlings of a scientist shoving feathers into a trash bag.

“I figured.” Chloe took an angry slurp of her coffee. 

* * *

Sometime later, after a delicious breakfast eaten in a parking lot out of plastic containers, they headed once more for the coastline parks, by way of State Road 23. 

“Hey, you know this turns into Decker Road later on down the line?” Ella asked, dark eyes twinkling.

“Yup,” Chloe said with a pop on the _ p _as she stared at the map on her phone. “But we’re not going that way today. When you get to Mulholland Highway — the second one, not the first one going east — take a right. Then another right on Little Sycamore.” 

“You got it, boss,” Ella said with a perky salute.

“There should be some good trails on this route. I’m hoping they won’t be terribly busy.”

“Fingers crossed,” Ella replied. “Hey, by the way, I have kind of a lead on the feathers. It’s not particularly helpful, but it sure as heck is interesting.” 

“Oh yeah? What’ve you got for me, Ella?” Suddenly, with the use of a familiar question, the whole situation seemed a bit more like any other case.

“Well, when I was scooping up feathers, I noticed how soft they were, a lot more so than normal feathers. At first I thought, y’know, divine intervention just made them extra special soft, right?” 

“Right. Seems logical,” Chloe granted, playing along with Ella’s usual storytelling.

“Totally. But then I thought, what if there’s something analogous to your wings, something pretty normal? That’s when I remembered that _ owl _feathers are way softer than normal. Bada bing bada bang, I start looking up owls, and what’d’ya know? I found somebody who looks amazingly similar. Pull up images of a barn owl for me, will ya?” 

She did so and was stunned by what she saw on the small screen of her phone. 

“You’re right, that’s it. Those are m— those are the wings.” She pulled up a few different images to see variations and angles. “From what I saw yesterday, yeah, it’s a perfect match.” The previous night, after they’d rested, Ella had helped by holding up mirrors in the tiny bathroom so that Chloe could get a rear view of what was attached to her back. The hardest part had been trying not to break anything in the small room. They’d both come out of the experience slightly bruised.

“Aw yeah, Ella does it again. Good job, Ella. Why thank you, Ella!” The scientist preened at her own praise. “I realize the info doesn’t do a whole lot for us, but all knowledge is potentially helpful knowledge as far as I’m concerned.”

Chloe murmured agreement. For a while after that, she watched the landscape rolling by. 

Eventually, a text message brought her attention back to her phone.

_ From Dan:   
_ _ Hey, wanted to check in. U doin ok? _

Chloe sighed and texted him back.

_ To Dan:   
_ _ I’m doing fine. No need to worry. How’s Trixie? _

_ From Dan:   
_ _ Trixie’s great. Got a B+ on her math test, the 1 she worried about. But she wants to see u. Are u free tomorrow? We could turn Taco Tues into Taco Sat, maybe? _

“Crap,” Chloe muttered with gritted teeth.

“What? What’s wrong?” Ella asked, glancing over.

“Dan’s getting antsy,” Chloe said. “He must have realized that something’s up. He’s fishing, looking for ways to find out more. He wants to have a family dinner.”

“Uhh, that’s not good.” Ella flickered eyes briefly toward Chloe before returning them to the road. “Can you put him off the scent?” 

“Yep, and I can do it without lying, thanks to you,” Chloe said. 

_ To Dan:  
_ _ I have plans with a friend on Saturday. I’ll be sure to come pick up Trixie on Sunday, though. _

Chloe relayed what she told Dan to Ella. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ella asked. “I mean, we don’t know how long it’s going to take to get you under control.” 

“Look, I’ve been thinking about that, and instead of focusing only on getting biological control, which I _ clearly _don’t have, I need a backup option. We already figured out that the wings don’t pass through dense solids, right?” 

“Right. Metal, rock, wood, and even fabric if it’s super-duper thick. I think it has something to do with air molecules, but to figure it out I’d really need to dig into quantum physics, a little bit of string theory, and probably the —” 

“We don’t have time for me to lose you in a list of books and Google searches a mile long. I know you, Ella. You won’t come up for air for a month.” 

Ella’s brows knitted together, but she nodded. “Fair point.”

“Well,” Chloe continued, “if we can find a secure way to keep the wings pinned under my clothes, I’ll be able to get back to my life.” 

Ella nodded slowly, considering that. “Good call. I like the way your mind works.”

Chloe’s phone chimed.

_ From Dan:  
_ _ Will see u Sun. We can go 2 the park. 3:00? _

“Dammit, Dan,” Chloe said. 

_ To Dan:  
_ _ Sure, that sounds great. See you both then. _

“Detective family. Whatcha gonna do?” Ella said with wry amusement. 

“Well, I can’t murder him because then I’d have to arrest myself,” Chloe grumbled. “It’s nice that he cares, but I hate that I still have to fight this overprotective BS even after the divorce.” 

“To be fair, he’s totally right,” Ella said.

“Not helping, Ella,” Chloe said a tad more sharply than intended.

“Right! I’ll just, uh, keep driving then, ha ha.”

Chloe cringed. “Sorry.” She gently knocked her head against the passenger side window. “I shouldn’t snap, especially when you’re doing so much to help.”

Ella allowed a quiet moment to pass before she said, “Don’t worry about it, Chloe. Your world’s been turned upside down. Again. For about the millionth time. I’m just glad you’re letting me help and not taking it all on yourself.”

They rode in silence for a little while, and Ella made the appropriate turns to take them deeper into the California wilds. 

Then, out of the blue, the tingling returned to Chloe’s body, and it happened all over at once. 

“Shit, oh my God, _ ow,” _ Chloe cried out. Her phone dropped to the car floor from her suddenly shaking hands, which were overwhelmed with pain. 

“Chloe, what’s wrong?” Ella shouted in alarm.

“It hurts!” Chloe yelled, and it ended on a small scream. She clenched her arms around her middle and writhed in the passenger seat of Ella’s car, as though moving might somehow alleviate the feeling of intense pressure from within and the thousands of needles piercing her skin from without.

“Oh my God, oh my God, Chloe, just hold on! _ Crap, _ is there nowhere on this freaking road to pull over?!” 

Distantly, through her pain, she could hear Ella pushing the engine. 

Chloe panted and shook forcefully. Something was _ burning _inside of her. 

“Pull over —” Chloe whimpered. “Please. _ Please, _ I have to get _ out!” _ Tears streamed down her face. Her teeth rattled hard from the force of her shaking around the internal pressure. 

“I’m trying! There’s just no _ space!” _ Ella yelled, frantic. She pulled around a sharp curve and saw outlets and gates, as well as mailboxes and housing. “Wait, there’s a spot right there, I can —” 

“_No! _ No houses! No people! Shit, keep going, fast!” Chloe demanded. 

“But —” 

“Just _ drive, _ Ella! I’m _ begging _you!” 

“Got it! Okay! Driving now!” 

Chloe clenched her teeth together so hard it was a wonder they didn’t crack. She curled into a fetal position in the seat, feeling like a balloon pumped too full of air and about to break apart down the middle. She suppressed her screams, swallowing them down.

A minute or an eternity later, Ella shouted.

“There’s a spot! Hang on, Chloe!” 

The car came to a halt at a small dirt shoulder next to trailhead markers. 

“Stay here, Ella!” Chloe ordered. “Just, whatever you do, _ stay here!” _

“But —” 

“DO IT!” 

Chloe didn’t wait another second or wait to see whether Ella would obey. She bolted out of the car and ran down the short trail, grateful to find no one else already there. Chloe ran as though she could outrun the pain and pressure.

Ahead of her she saw a rocky structure. Without even making a decision, she ran onto it, climbing and leaping until she reached the edge of a cliff and had to stop. 

As soon as she stopped, the pain caught up with her and brought her to her knees. Clutching her hands at the jagged, pale stone beneath her, she tried to bear the pain and couldn’t. At last, Chloe reared back, staring at the sky, and she screamed without knowing what words came out of her mouth. 

Far away, though, her voice was heard, and the words she said were “I accepted! I accept! FINISH IT!” 

The pressure burst, light came forth, her wings unfurled, and Chloe Decker was remade. 

The pain ceased, and she knew only peace and warmth. She shut her eyes to savor the sweetness of it. She tasted honey, heard the echo of a forgotten language, felt the softness of a loving touch across her entire being. 

For a while, Chloe simply existed in that moment of beauty and grace, holding onto it even as it began to slowly fade. She could have held onto it forever, forced the moment and the sensation of perfection to stay with her, but she knew she didn’t have to. She understood that if she ever needed it, it would always be less than a heartbeat away from her. 

Chloe remained there, kneeling, staring out at the landscape spread before her. She kept her wings spread wide. They trembled with joy and eagerness at the feeling of the wind and sunlight, and her heart leapt. 

The taste of salt blended with the flavor of honey as fresh tears ran down her face and into her open mouth. 

Eventually, she heard Ella calling out for her. 

“Chloe? Chloe, where are you?!” 

She looked over her shoulder, past her wings, but Ella wasn’t in view. She shifted so that she no longer knelt on the bare rock but sat instead, her legs dangling over the edge of the precipice. 

“I’m over here, Ella,” she shouted. The sound of her own voice surprised her, not because it was different but because it was the same as it had ever been. 

Ella shouted back. “Is it safe to come near you, or are you going to, I don’t know, go nuclear again?” 

Chloe huffed a small laugh. “Perfectly safe.” With a roll of her shoulders, she put her wings away. The movement came to her naturally, instinctively. 

After a moment, Ella came into view, a smudge of trail dust evident on her unicorn T-shirt. 

“Are you okay?” the scientist asked with trepidation. 

Chloe smiled, still feeling serene. “Yeah, yeah I am. It’s over now. That was the last big push. I...wow, I’ve...I don’t even know how to describe what that was. It’s like everything’s unlocked now.” She wiped the tears from her face. 

“Unlocked? Like, control, sensation, everything?” 

“Mmhm, everything.” Chloe got up from her seat at the edge of the rock and turned around. “Full control.” 

She gave a little wiggle, and her wings opened up on command. 

Ella’s reaction wasn’t what she expected, however. The latina immediately put one hand over her mouth, and another over her heart, and then tears welled in her eyes. 

_ Okay, this crying thing is getting ridiculous, _ Chloe thought. 

“Are you okay, Ella?” She started to approach and allowed her wings to settle behind her rather than stay arched.

Ella, however, took a step backward and shook her head. Her mouth fell open, and little whimpers escaped her, but she couldn’t seem to form words. She just pointed with one hand at Chloe’s wings. 

Frowning, Chloe rolled her shoulders again to draw them back into herself. Something had definitely changed about them — they clearly affected Ella more strongly than they had previously.

Chloe approached Ella again, and this time her friend allowed her near. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ella babbled, scrubbing furiously at her face. “I mean, they’re still wings, and you’re still you, but it’s just so much _ more _now.” She panted helplessly, taking deep, shaky breaths. 

“C’mon, let’s get off the rocks and back on the trail,” Chloe said gently, and together they climbed back down. 

After a few shaky minutes, Ella calmed down at last. 

“Wow, divinity, man. That’s a headrush like I never expected.” 

Chloe nodded slowly. She doubted that she’d ever be able to describe her experience during her moment of celestial metamorphosis.

“I wonder whether there are going to be any aftershocks,” Ella mused.

Chloe looked at her sharply. “Aftershocks?” 

Ella nodded. “Yeah, ya kinda caused an earthquake. I mean, not the worst I’ve ever experienced, but it was maybe a solid four on the Richter scale. But that was _ nothing _compared with the light show. From the exact spot where you were sitting, a giant column of white light shot straight up into the sky, like a beacon or a flashlight. I know you were trying to avoid people, but I’m telling you, that would have been visible from outer space.” The scientist shrugged helplessly. “I guess we can add lasers to your superpower list after all.” 

Chloe rolled that over in her mind for a moment before motivation gripped her by the heart.

“C’mon, we need to move.” Chloe started fast-walking toward the car.

“Huh?” Ella lagged behind, but she also sprang into motion. “Wait, what?” 

“Someone might come looking, and we don’t want to be here when that happens.” 

“Right. And now we’re running away from God’s Seat. Got it.”

“God’s what?” Chloe asked, startled, just as she reached the car and pulled open the door. Ella stopped across from her at the driver’s side, looking over the car roof at her. 

“God’s Seat. It’s what that cliff is called.” Ella shrugged as if to say “what’re ya gonna do?” 

Chloe took an extra moment — one that they didn’t really have to spare — to digest that. 

“Aaand now I know where Lucifer gets his sense of humor.” Chloe rolled her eyes up to the sky. “You think you’re soooo cute, but that’s the kind of joke my _ eleven-year-old _ would make. Just so you know.” 

They set off down the road again, with Ella giggling like a naughty schoolgirl and Chloe’s high of heavenly ecstasy already wiped out by a bad pun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I think is fun in the show _Lucifer_ is how the angels have a variety of wings. When Remiel popped hers out and they looked like hawk wings, I reacted with, “OH HO, what have we here?” because I’m a bit of a bird nerd. And I figured maybe each angel has a real bird equivalent. 
> 
> So I went with barn owl wings for Chloe because I wanted her wings to match her hair. (Yes, I know I'm a dork. 😳) 
> 
> A couple of great links to see what Chloe’s wings look like:  
[Barn Owl Link 1](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/media-browser/63738031)  
[Barn Owl Link 2](https://guardiansofgahoole.fandom.com/wiki/Barn_Owls?file=Barniehoot.jpg)
> 
> (Yes, elleflies, this was planned BEFORE I met you.) 
> 
> And here's [a video of God’s Seat on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7joNWcsKaeI).
> 
>   
Meanwhile, hmm, I wonder how Lucifer and John are getting along? 🤔


	10. Rocking the Heavenly Boat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer and John Decker have a little heart to heart.

“You’re John Decker?” Lucifer asked with wide eyes. 

“That’s me,” John Decker replied, not relaxing his stern pose. 

“Just to be clear, we’re talking about _ the _John Decker? Husband of Penelope, father of Chloe Decker?” 

“Yes. Are you okay?” 

“Am I ever?!” Lucifer laughed and nearly shouted for joy. “It’s no wonder I felt like I’ve seen your face before. It’s because I have! Your portrait is on the wall at the LAPD precinct. I used to walk by it every day. Granted, that was a while ago for me now. _ Quite _a while ago. Really, I should have realized from the moment I saw you. There must be something about those Decker genes. They’re like a special kind of catnip for the Devil.” 

The other man appeared overwhelmed, his rigid stance broken to look at Lucifer askew. Why did people always look at him that way? 

“Were you going somewhere with this?” John asked, a befuddled expression on his handsome face. 

Lucifer cleared his throat. “Right then, straight to business it is. I’m here to, ah —” He had to clear his throat a second time to keep from closing up. Then he forged ahead quickly to get the words out. “I’m simply here to verify that the Detective, I mean Chloe, is well settled, with all of the due honor that she deserves. If you yourself can reassure me of that, I’ll be on my way.” 

“That’s all you need? Just my word, and you’ll fly off?” 

John Decker’s words took Lucifer aback. “Of course. I trust that your word is good, especially where your daughter is concerned. She put the utmost faith in you — revered you, really — and that’s not something I’d take lightly. It’s just that I’ve some lingering concerns that her association with me might have, shall we say, clouded some judgment. The truth is that she deserves nothing but the highest honors that could be afforded to her, or whatever passes for honors granted to human souls. I wouldn’t know what that might be — I’d already been kicked out by the time humans started taking up residence.” 

John took a deep breath and moved his hands to his hips, shaking his head with bemusement. 

“You really do talk a lot,” the former cop said with a wry twist to his mouth.

Lucifer shrugged. “So I’ve been told. Many times. Frequently by your daughter.” 

John Decker looked down and scuffed a foot along the perfect grass in contemplation before returning his gaze to Lucifer. “If I could tell you she’s well, you wouldn’t even want to see her?” John asked, searching his face. 

_ YES! _Lucifer’s heart screamed. 

_ “No!” _ he said hastily, the ache in his chest so great it nearly brought him to his knees. Then he continued more quietly. “Or, I would, but...” He lifted his hand again, pushing his fingers hard against the barrier so that his skin paled with the pressure. “All things considered, I believe it’d be best if I take your reassurances and go. All I need to know is that she’s…” Lucifer hesitated, lost, staring blankly forward and contemplating the eternity ahead of him. 

“...she’s what?” John prompted sharply.

“That she’s happy.” 

Silence fell between the two men, and in that silence, Lucifer applied every ounce of his will and forced himself to accept the finality of his own words. He would take the knowledge of Chloe’s joy in Heaven and hoard it like the greediest of misers. It would become his greatest treasure. And every time his heart cried out, _ let me be with her, _ he would take out his treasure, look at it, and say, _ this is enough. _

John let out a heavy breath, and something in his posture relaxed. He looked at Lucifer with his clear, penetrating eyes. 

“Well, the truth is, she’s not here.” 

Lucifer’s stomach felt as though it dropped all the way back to Earth, maybe even to Hell.

“What?” A horrible buzzing started in his brain, like a hundred flies whirring next to his ears. “She’s not in Hell, either. I would have known. There’s no way I _ wouldn’t _ have known. And I bloody well would never _ allow _it!”

Behind him, his wings arched, and he felt them begin to radiate with the first stirrings of anger. He kept the hellfire from his eyes, but only barely. 

“Where is she? If she’s not here, _ where is she?” _

The entrance to Heaven began to shake.

“Whoa, whoa, easy there!” John said, holding up his hands in a placating manner. “Keep the brimstone under control. Chloe’s alive. She’s back on Earth.” 

Everything went still. 

“What?” 

Lucifer whispered the question. He couldn’t have said it any other way.

“She’s alive, Lucifer.” 

He shook his head. “I saw her die. I _ saw _her.” In his memory, the moment he witnessed in the Hell loop unfolded again in excruciating detail. “Her soul crossed beyond the threshold of life!”

“And there were certain —” John stumbled as he searched for the right word. “— circumstances, and Chloe is alive. I swear, I’d tell you if she were here, but she’s not.” 

The most terrifying emotion took hold of Lucifer just then. It sparked and flickered inside of him before flaring into life like fire meeting gasoline. 

Hope.

“Chloe’s alive?” he asked, begged. 

“Yes, yes, she’s alive!” John insisted.

The next words that fell from his lips were uttered without conscious decision, without restraint or reticence, without malice or sarcasm.

“Thank God,” he whispered.

That was the moment the ground below them shook, rocking them where they stood, and a blast like an explosion echoed from a great distance behind Lucifer. He whirled around to look, and far off he could see a pillar of light rising from the lake where he’d crossed into the realm.

“What are you doing?” John shouted at him in alarm as the ground continued to shake.

“For once, it’s not me rocking the Heavenly boat!” 

They rode the shock waves for several minutes before the column of light began to shrink and disappear, and the ground beneath them grew still once again. 

“What was that?” Lucifer asked, wide-eyed. 

John shook his head. “Hey, if _ you _don’t know, there’s no way I’m going to have any clue.” 

“Good point. Normally I’d be up for a little ‘good cop, handsome devil cop’ routine to investigate the mystery, regardless of the particular Decker available. However, I’d prefer to stick to the case at hand. I’ve misplaced my Detective, and I’d like to fix that immediately.” 

John Decker smiled and crossed through the archway. “Is that so? Then I’m not sure what you’re doing hanging around here. You’d better get back down to Earth.” 

Lucifer wanted nothing more than to leave, and his wings twitched as though ready to take flight at any moment, but his feet remained rooted to the spot where he stood.

“Officer Decker,” he started, but words failed him. 

John smiled, and it was a soft thing, filled with both sadness and joy. “Just make sure that when you get her into trouble, you get her back out again.” Then he offered his hand. 

Lucifer took his hand in a firm grasp, never breaking eye contact. “Always. I give you my word.” 

John Decker gave a nod. “Good, then get out of here, and give my girls my love.” 

“Whilst we’re trading messages, would you be so kind as to send my regards to Charlotte Richards?” Lucifer asked. 

“Deal,” John said with a shit-eating grin. 

Lucifer was too stunned to process what happened until John Decker was walking away across the fields to return to the Silver City. 

“Deckers,” Lucifer muttered. “Too clever for their own good, the lot of them.”

Lucifer took a few moments to straighten out his most tangled flight feathers, and he put on his jacket. The sodden socks he considered for a moment before gently throwing them through the barrier and to the ground inside it. Then he smiled and put on his shoes.

When he was just about to take off, he heard the sound of rapidly approaching wingbeats. Five angels flew high through the open entrance of Heaven over Lucifer’s head. Then the leader at the apex of the V made a gesture, and the formation turned around as one unit and came back to land in front of Lucifer.

He knew that if he were human, he would be developing a hellacious migraine just then.

The leader spoke first. “Lucifer, what business do you have here, and what responsibility do you bear for the disturbance that just occurred?” 

“Hello, Michael,” he said sweetly to the archangel who bore his same image. “Remy. Raph. Flunkies.” He nodded to the others accompanying his twin.

“Answer the question,” Michael said, glaring. 

“First of all, it’s two questions, not one,” Lucifer said. “A, none of your fucking business, and B, not actually my mess. I don’t have any more of a clue as to what’s going on than you do.” He favored his twin with a toothy smile. 

Michael, however, could summon no facial expression other than blasé annoyance, just the same as always. They stared, iron will against unstoppable force. 

Raphael interrupted them with a dismissive gesture of one of his large hands, as though sweeping away the charged atmosphere. “The disturbance originated on Earth. Lucifer, you are accustomed to the mortal realm. Before you return to Hell, you should assist us in finding the cause.” Michael cut a grimace of distaste at Raphael, but the blond angel didn’t seem phased. “What? It’s practical. It will speed up the mission so we can get home faster. I don’t want to spend any more time on Earth than is strictly necessary.” 

Michael nodded once. “Your reasoning is sound.” He looked once more at Lucifer. “You should accompany us.” 

Remiel put her face in one hand, clutching her spear hard with the other, and muttered something disparaging about brothers. 

Lucifer kept his smile plastered in place. “So kind of you to offer to use me for your own benefit, but I’ve my own business to be about. Places to go, people to do, all that. Best of luck finding whatever it is your looking for.” Judging by the blank looks on their faces, they hadn’t a clue. What a lark that would be. 

“Typical,” Michael said. “Typical, selfish Lucifer. Raphael overestimates your usefulness.”

Lucifer arched his eyebrows. “You know, if you ever want to do something to address that superiority complex of yours, you might try seeing a therapist. I can recommend one personally. She specializes in celestial counseling. Shall I give you her number?” 

There was no warning before Michael struck. One moment they faced each other, and in the next breath the archangel slammed Lucifer’s face against the invisible barrier, with his right wing and both arms locked in a hold he couldn’t break. Lucifer thrashed and strained but was helpless. Trapped and immobile, he couldn’t help but stare at the path that was barred to him. The pressure restricted his breathing.

“You treat divinity as a joke because _ you _ are a joke, _ traitor,” _ Michael hissed in his ear. “Although we may look the same, never mistake me as being anything like you. I would never need the counsel of some pathetic human. I lack your weaknesses.” 

After another moment, Michael abruptly released him, and Lucifer coughed and cleared his throat, shaking his wings out to straighten them. 

He turned to see the rest of his siblings had turned their backs, and only Michael still faced him, contempt written in the downturned lines of his face. 

“Go back to Hell where you belong.” 

Lucifer grit his teeth and snarled, but his five siblings synchronously leapt into the air and flew away, heading for the mortal realm.

“Twat,” Lucifer ground out, savoring every part of the word as he said it. 

His pride stung fiercely. Wrath blazed in his gut and swept through his veins, warming him like an old friend and attempting to wash away every drop of relief and joy he had felt a few scant moments ago. With great effort, however, he pushed his anger aside. His infuriating, stick-in-the-arse, prat of a brother was undeserving of a place at the top of his priority list at that moment. 

He took to the air.

* * *

Making haste, Lucifer soon arrived back on Earth with no idea what day, month, or even year it was. However, that mattered little: He had only one goal, and that was to find Chloe.

Certainly a phone would have been handy, but his mobile had been shattered a couple decades prior during a particularly brutal conflict with a rebellious faction of imps. 

He’d simply have to go Detective hunting.

First he went to the most obvious starting point, her apartment. He unlocked it and let himself in, calling out her name but receiving no answer. The home looked exactly as he remembered it — same furniture, same bric-a-brac, same ghastly scribbles by the spawn littering the walls. The familiar sight after so long away was highly encouraging. 

Next he flew to Linda’s home. After a rough landing in the hydrangeas in her garden, he let himself in the back door. 

“Hello! Is anyone home?” he shouted.

“Lucifer? Is that you?” Amenadiel called from the living room.

“Ah, good.” Lucifer made his way through the house and found Amenadiel sprawled on the couch with a swaddled infant asleep on his chest. “Hello, brother. Can I borrow your phone?”

Dark, worried eyes looked up at him. “Lucifer, what are you doing here? Is it safe?” He looked down at his tiny son cuddled up with him and placed one large hand on the baby’s back. 

“Yes, yes, I have that all sorted out. Charlie has nothing to fear from power-hungry demons ever again. I’ll fill you in on the details later. About that phone?” 

“But how did you get here? I didn’t hear a car pull up.”

“I flew, of course,” Lucifer said.

“Flew? In broad daylight? Just as reckless as always, brother. Anyone could have seen you!” 

“Not possible. I was going too fast for the human eye to follow. And I’m in a bit of a rush if you don’t mind.” He held out his hands and wiggled his fingers expectantly but put on a teasing smile to soften the demand. 

Amenadiel sighed and carefully got his phone out of his pocket without disturbing his tiny son. “Irritating as ever, but it is very good to see you. You’ve been missed in your absence. Deeply missed.” 

Lucifer froze and absorbed the meaning behind Amenadiel’s words solemnly. He nodded in understanding before reaching for the phone. Amenadiel pulled it out of his reach at the last second.

“And can you keep it down?” Amenadiel requested seriously. “I just got Charlie to sleep after that celestial flare up and the earthquake. He didn’t like that one bit and was screaming his head off.”

Lucifer nodded his compliance. “Yes, yes, quiet as mouse.” He then plucked the phone from his brother’s hand and looked at the date. It had been barely six months since he left. 

Feeling breathless, he pulled up Chloe’s contact screen and clicked to dial. 

* * *

Many miles away, a phone buzzed where it had fallen beneath the passenger seat of Ella’s car. No one heard it, and no one answered. 

* * *

When the call went to voicemail, Lucifer ended the connection with a stab of his thumb.

“Damn!” He slapped the phone back into Amenadiel’s waiting hand. “Wherever she is, she’s not answering.”

Then a thought belatedly occurred to him. Officer Decker had said Chloe was alive but not what sort of condition she was in. She could be lying in a hospital bed somewhere for all he knew. 

“Do you know where Chloe is right now?” he asked urgently.

Amenadiel shrugged as well as he could with a sleeping baby on his chest. “At work? It’s Friday. That seems to be where the majority of humans are during weekdays.” 

Lucifer nodded, satisfied. Whatever had happened with Chloe’s injury, it must have been long enough ago that she had fully recovered. 

“Well then, I guess it’s time I ought to get to work,” Lucifer said. 

“But don’t you want to —” Amenadiel started, but Lucifer was already striding away.

“— change into some normal clothes! You’re still wearing your Hell armor!” 

However, Lucifer was already out of hearing range.

Still on the couch and looking down into Charlie’s sleepy, confused eyes, Amenadiel explained gently, “That was your Uncle Lucifer, and he is _ always like that.” _

A very short time later, Lucifer touched down lightly on the roof of the LAPD precinct, folded his wings securely away, and let himself into the building through the roof access door. After a bit of fussing around the top floor, which turned out to be a dusty storage nightmare, he found his way down to the bullpen. 

He received confused stares and many halted, shocked greetings, but he paid them no mind. He made a bee-line for the Detective’s desk, which turned out to be frustratingly empty. 

“Double damn,” he muttered. Her computer appeared to be turned off, so she likely wasn’t in the station. He scanned the surface of her desk for anything that might provide a clue as to her whereabouts. 

“Lucifer? Is that you?” 

It wasn’t the voice he was hoping to hear, but it held promise. Lucifer turned to find Detective Daniel Espinoza looking him up and down, slack jawed.

“And what are you wearing? Are those knives on your belt? Is this some sort of cosplay thing? I really didn’t think you’d be into that sort of thing.” 

Lucifer looked down at himself and sighed. He had on his basilisk-hide suit, the good one that he’d had made a few years ago to at least somewhat mimic the elegant lines of Armani, while still being practical for battle. “Hell is exactly correct, Daniel. And yes, those are indeed knives, as you can tell by the hilts and sheaths. They’re also Hell-forged and very good for stabbing things. Well done with the detective work and clue-gathering — you’ve found me out. I’m the Devil. I’m sure you’re very surprised.” 

For his jest, Lucifer received the trademark “stop shitting with me right now” Espinoza glare. 

“Cut the crap, man.” He glared and poked two sharp fingers straight into Lucifer’s chest. He couldn’t feel it through the armor, however. “You disappear for half a year, and Chloe can’t even...and she nearly — no, just _ no. _ Look, you take your Devil schtick and shove it up your ass, got it?” 

“Is Chloe safe?” Lucifer said the words quietly and with deadly seriousness. 

Something in his tone must have gotten through Daniel’s fit of anger, because the detective scanned Lucifer’s face carefully and realized that he meant business. 

Daniel ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, she’s fine. There was a big scare on Tuesday, but she’s fine. Somehow. She’s at home, resting.” 

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. “I assure you, Daniel, she’s not at home. I stopped there first. There was no one home, and her car was in her parking spot.” 

Daniel looked as though smoke was about to start streaming out of his ears. “Shit, I knew she was hiding something.” He pulled out his phone and dialed. 

“Already tried that,” Lucifer assured him. He began to rummage through the papers on Chloe’s desk while Daniel waited, without luck.

The detective swore as he was sent to voicemail. “Hey, Chloe, it’s me. Give me a call as soon as you get this message.” He closed out of the voicemail and sent a text for good measure. 

“What happened on Tuesday?” Lucifer asked as he held up the case file for the murder at Handy’s Alterations and Dry Cleaning. 

Daniel took a deep breath and put his hands on his hips. “Chloe was out investigating a case. She witnessed a scene and she, well, she _ seemed _ to get shot by a trigger-happy scumbag. She was _ down.” _ At that, Daniel had to pause and take a hard swallow, giving his head a shake to clear it. “But then she wasn’t. I remember Ella shouting, and then Chloe just...woke up. No wound, just blood. I’m telling you, I’m still not sure whether I was dreaming or it was actually an honest-to-God miracle.” 

Lucifer slowly closed his eyes.

“My money is, unfortunately, on the latter,” he ground out. He snapped his eyes back open and looked Daniel in the eye. “Is there anything we can do to figure out where Chloe may have gone? I need to find her, and the sooner the better.” 

Daniel pressed his lips together, considering that. “I could get a search warrant for debit and credit transactions.”

“Not fast enough.” 

After some consideration, Daniel held up one finger. “There’s one other thing. It’s a long shot, but it might work. I need a few minutes, though.” He hurried back to his desk. 

Lucifer, meanwhile, opened the case file and read through it rapidly, scanning over pictures and notes about evidence. When he reached a photo of Chloe lying prone, a bullet in her neck, he snapped the file shut with a gasp and dropped it on her desk. 

Shaken, he decided to get the details and evidence of the case straight from the horse’s mouth rather than ever have to see that sight again. 

The science lab, however, was dark and empty.

Lucifer strode over to Daniel’s desk and found him on the phone. 

“Where’s Miss Lopez?” Lucifer asked. 

Daniel frowned and shushed him and then spoke into the phone. “Yes, I can hold.” He looked back up at Lucifer. “She’s on PTO. I heard that a family emergency came up or something.”

“You just said she was at the scene on Tuesday. I want to ask her about it.” 

“Well, she’s not here, so you can’t. She’s been out since yesterday.”

“Then can I borrow your phone when you’re done so I can call her?” 

Daniel glared at him. “Use your own damn phone.”

“Can’t. Broke it a couple decades ago while quelling rebellious demons. Haven’t had a chance to replace it just yet since I’ve only just gotten back to Earth.” 

“What the crap, man? Oh, sorry, sorry, not you!” Daniel spoke once more into the phone and pulled a pad of paper close to him to make notes. “Go ahead, whenever you’re ready.” 

Lucifer rolled his eyes and went back to the Detective’s desk, avoiding the disturbing case file but shuffling through everything else within reach.

After a few moments, Dan came over to him with the notepaper. “We got a lucky break. Chloe used a credit card this morning that’s still in both our names. She ordered two meals at El Sancho Loco, a little place to the west in Newbury Park.”

“Two meals?” Lucifer asked. 

“I have no idea who’s with her. But man, that’s right near where they’re saying the epicenter of this morning’s earthquake happened. It wasn’t an especially bad one, but I hope she’s okay.” 

Chloe had long since taught Lucifer that when coincidences piled up, they stopped being coincidences and started being clues. 

Miracle. 

Resurrection.

Earthquake of celestial origin. 

_ Michael! _

“I have to go,” Lucifer said, breathless. “Going to borrow this after all.” Lucifer swiped the phone from Daniel’s pocket, nicked the pad of paper from his hands, and then ran for the stairwell. 

“What the fuck?!” Daniel gave chase after him. 

They thundered through the stairwell, Lucifer single-minded and purposeful, and Daniel as angry as a bag full of wet cats, cursing all the way. 

“Give me back my damn phone, Lucifer! You asshole!” 

Lucifer pulled up a map on the phone, and he dropped the pad of paper as soon as he memorized the address of the restaurant. 

“No time to explain, Detective Douche! Just borrowing it. I’ll get it back to you in one piece. Or I could get you a whole new one, maybe a nice upgrade.” 

Lucifer burst through the door to the top floor and swerved to get to the separate roof access stairs. Daniel was still hot on his heels.

“I don’t want a new phone! I want you to stop being such a prick!” 

“Greater beings than you have tried and failed to make me behave, Daniel. Best give up that lofty goal.” 

He took the stairs three at a time and came out onto the roof.

Daniel was close behind, panting but still keeping up. 

“Where are you even going? This is the roof.” He said it as though just realizing where they’d been heading. It probably hadn’t even registered to him in the heat of the chase. 

“I’m going to go find Chloe and make sure my siblings don’t do anything foolish.” 

“Like I said, we’re _ on the roof.” _

“Yes. It’s terribly convenient for me.”

With a sharp roll of his shoulders, Lucifer unfurled his wings. 

Daniel’s face went slack with shock and awe.

_ “Dios mio,” _ he whispered.

Lucifer gave Daniel a pitying smile. “Can I borrow your phone after all, Daniel?” 

Trembling slightly, Daniel looked from the wings to Lucifer’s face and nodded silently.

Lucifer grinned, pleased with himself. “Excellent. Off I pop then.”

With that, he launched himself once more into the air, heading west.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...Lucifer? Are you just going to break Dan and swan off? 
> 
> I am justifiably convinced that Lucifer's wings are swan wings. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	11. Flight of Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Ella encounter more divinity than one normally expects to find on a hiking trail in California.

“Do you promise you’re not going to try to fly straight to Hell without talking to Amenadiel first?” 

“For the fifth time, Ella, I promise!”

They hiked along the dusty Mishe Mowka trail, located a few miles west of where Chloe had set off celestial fireworks for as far as the eye could see. They’d agreed that if they came upon anyone, they would both say they’d seen the phenomenon from Backbone Trail, located south of the main road. 

“Good. That’s really good. Because I’ve been thinking, and I’ve had a sort of _ revelation, _ if you will.” 

“Har har,” Chloe said with an eye roll that Ella couldn’t see from behind her on the narrow trail.

“And according to my revelation, I feel like I have a lot of responsibility and investment in your safety here. I mean, I’ve been working on my relationship with the Big Guy, and I want to keep Lucifer as a friend, and they _ both _seem kind of invested in you, so yeah, don’t do anything too crazy.” 

“Crazy is my life. I am one with the crazy. It’s my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Oh wait, I don’t seem to need to eat any more!” 

“But that huarache you ate was pretty darn good, am I right?” 

Chloe thought of the flatbread and fresh avocado and made an involuntary happy sound. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ella said smugly. “Besides, Lucifer is always eating, so it’s NBD. Hey, it’s been a bit. Can you show me some wing again? I gotta keep getting used to it if I’m going to be your human helper.” 

Chloe paused in the middle of the trail and turned, craning her head to double-check that no one was near. “You ready?” 

“Yeah, yeah, c’mon, hit me.” Ella made encouraging gestures with both hands. “I’m ready for it.” 

“Here goes.” Chloe gave a little shimmy, and they popped out of her back. 

Because she could feel her wings, she wanted to sigh in relief just from letting them loose. It felt more natural to have them out than in, less constrained. She arched her back and wiggled a little more, still getting used to the new muscles and sensation. It felt really, _ really _good to stretch them as far as they could go behind her before settling them down along her sides. 

She could see them from her peripheral vision after they settled. It was a lot like having two tall friends standing behind each of her shoulders. 

Ella was staring and chewing on her lip. 

“You okay, Ella?” Chloe asked in her gentlest mom voice. “Gonna cry? Start bursting into spontaneous prayer? _ Please _don’t spontaneously pray again.”

“No! No, I’m okay,” Ella said in a rush. “Actually, seeing you do all of those really basic, birdy movements helps a lot. It seems more natural, I guess. Okay, I do want to pray a little, but I can keep it under control, I swear!” 

“You sure? Because if you have a lid on it, I’m going to leave them out for a while. I need to feel the air on them and stretch.” Emphasizing her words, she arched them high over her head, pushing and testing each individual muscle and flexing the joints.

Ella gasped and crossed herself. _ “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Dios te salve, María. Llena eres de gracia: El Señor es contigo….” _

“Ella! Shit, Ella, snap out of it.” Chloe scrambled over a couple of rocks and took her by the shoulders, giving her a couple of shakes. “Hey, it’s just me, Chloe! I’m nothing but a big freaking owl. Hoot hoot! Hooty hoo!” 

Ella stopped muttering in Spanish, suffered a moment of confusion, and then broke into uncontrollable laughter. “Oh my gosh, Chloe, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard you say!”

Chloe tried to hold it in, but then she started laughing as well, which made Ella start giggling all over again. Then one or the other of them would randomly hoot to set the other off, and so it continued until they were breathless and crying from mirth. 

Ella snickered and wiped at her eyes. “For reals, I should be good now. If a powerful wave of worship comes over me again, I’ll just hoot and be fine.” 

“An easy cure is the best cure,” Chloe said with a snicker.

“Hey Chlo, now that I can keep it together, I want to get the final measurement!” She pulled her measuring tape off her belt and wiggled it enticingly. 

They took a couple of minutes to measure Chloe’s wingspan. It went much more smoothly than it had when Chloe couldn’t feel anything or control her movements. 

“A whopping one hundred, sixty-five and a half inches,” Ella reported. “Wowza.”

“_ Owl _ drink to that,” Chloe said with a grin and raised her water bottle for a swig, causing Ella to start giggling again. 

Apparently owl puns could save an individual’s sanity in the face of divinity.

They hiked further along the trail, occasionally stopping to let Chloe get in some good flaps against the wind when it rolled over the hills. Eventually, though, they encountered other hikers, and Chloe was forced to retract her wings. After that, she kept them tucked away, but she and Ella began to search for a good spot to wander off trail and experiment with low-risk flight testing. They needed someplace that was both wide enough for her to spread her wings but concealed from casual observation.

Before they could find an ideal spot, however, Chloe felt something. It wasn’t like any feeling she’d ever experienced before — she perceived it more like a combination of multiple senses. It dusted across her soul like heat and static, like the scent of rain clouds and the taste of coffee warming her veins and waking her up in the morning. 

“Chloe? Chloe, what’s wrong?” 

Only when Ella prodded her did she realize she’d stopped walking. 

“Something’s coming,” Chloe said, tilting her head and trying to listen to what her senses were telling her but struggling to understand. “I think it’s powerful. And close.” 

Around a curve of the trail ahead of them, they heard several heavy thumps, like the sound of something heavy being dropped onto the dusty ground. Then Chloe heard several footsteps approaching. 

“Stay close, Ella,” she whispered as low as she could, her fist in the shoulder of Ella’s teddy bear T-shirt. “No matter what, don’t say _ anything. _ Let me handle it. _ ” _

“Humans?” Ella whispered back. 

Chloe shook her head to indicate “no” without taking her eyes off the trail. She could catch glimpses of people moving through the trees and scrub brush. Ella swallowed and nodded her understanding.

When the first person came around the scraggly trees, her eyes went wide, and Ella’s fingers dug into her arm. 

It was Lucifer!

She almost said his name but stopped herself just in time.

It was him, but it also wasn’t. 

Where Lucifer’s face and eyes showed a veritable carnival ride of expressions, this doppelganger had a facade like stone. His black hair was cropped short, and his face was clean shaven. He wore shining golden armor like something from a Renaissance painting. The five individuals who followed behind him were a motley group, each with a wildly different physical attributes and clothing choices.

The not-Lucifer held his hand out flat, palm upward. 

“Hand over whatever object of divinity it is that you stole, and you will not be harmed,” he said with a voice like cold iron. His words held no accent.

Chloe’s spine stiffened. Everything inside of her wanted to unfurl her wings to make herself look bigger and more intimidating, but she resisted. 

“I’m Detective Chloe Decker with the LAPD,” she responded. “And unless you want to be arrested for threatening a police officer, I suggest you reconsider your statement. And maybe you should take your cosplay party off the hillside and into a convention hall.” 

She was bluffing. She knew there would be no arresting the not-Lucifer or any of the rest of them, but she had already decided to play her cards close to her chest. She’d simply have to play the dumb human for the moment until she could get a handle on the full situation and come up with a better plan. 

Beside her, Ella trembled but held strong. The latina clutched fiercely to Chloe’s arm, and Chloe spared a stray thought to wonder at the fact that her nails weren’t drawing blood. 

The not-Lucifer dropped his hand to his side and stared at her impassively. 

“I respect that you are an individual who keeps order, daughter of Eve.”

Chloe suppressed a wince. That hit way too close to home. 

The armored man continued. “I, too, am responsible for maintaining order. That is why I require that you give me whatever divine object it is that you have. You already caused great disruption near here. Although it took me some time to track the scent of power, you have not done well hiding the essence of whatever object it is you carry.” 

Chloe pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Sorry, pal, but you’re way out of line. Whatever jurisdiction you think you might have here, you don’t.”

The first sign of emotion flickered in the man’s eyes. It was irritation. 

“Rikbiel, Tennin, bring them with us. I require a more spacious place to talk.” With that said, he unfurled giant golden wings. 

Chloe and Ella didn’t have to feign their gasps of shock. His wings were shocking in their beauty. However, the two women didn’t have long to contemplate or react, because between one breath and the next, he leapt into the air and disappeared from view. Two of the others followed suit quickly, unfurling wings and leaping after him, but two remained behind, and both were approaching Chloe and Ella. 

“Ella, run. _ Run!” _ Chloe urged her, shoving at her to try to get her to move, but Ella was too far gone, trembling and numb with awe. 

Then it was too late, and they were taken. Chloe hollered as one of the angels, she didn’t know which, grabbed a hold of her as though she weighed nothing more than a toddler, lifted her in his arms, and flew straight up off the trail. Then they were moving so fast that Chloe could see nothing more of the Earth than a blur of green and brown.

Mere seconds later, they landed on a bare-faced cliffside. As soon as they touched down, each angel put his or her wings away. Chloe scrambled out of the arms of the angel who had carried her and looked for Ella, who appeared wobbly and barely able to stand on her own. The scientist stood next to the the lanky woman who had carried her, but they were considerably farther from the cliff’s edge than Chloe was. 

Chloe made to go support her friend, but the large, blond male put a heavy hand on her shoulder and stopped her. 

“Let go of me!” Chloe shook off his hold and moved away from him, jumping over a small crevice to a different rock. 

Unfortunately, the not-Lucifer appeared on that same rock as though out of thin air. 

“Who are you?” Chloe asked, angry and painfully aware that she was far out of her depth. 

“I am Michael, the demiurge, archangel of the Lord God Almighty, your Creator.” 

_ Archangel, just like Lucifer. They really are twins, _ Chloe thought, and her mind was in great danger of spinning in circles repeating that one solid fact that she could cling to. 

“I think you need to add kidnapper to your list of titles, buddy,” she said aloud, bravado her only source of strength.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “I can tell it is you who holds the heavenly relic, not the other one. All I require is that you hand it over. Then this troubling episode will be behind you both.” 

“Sorry, I don’t have any heavenly relics on me. But since you don’t need my friend, how about you let her go?” 

Michael cast his gaze upon Ella, who was coming around enough to start trying to inch away from her captor. 

“The small dark one stays,” Michael said. “Rikbiel.” The tall woman took a firm hold of Ella’s upper arm, which the scientist tried and failed to break. 

Chloe heard her utter something rude in Spanish. She hoped that meant Ella’s fighting spirit was still strong, despite having been kidnapped by a flight of angels. 

“What do you plan to do with the item you’ve stolen?” Michael asked. 

“Nothing, because I didn’t steal anything,” Chloe said. “What do you plan on doing with me and Ella when you’re done with this interrogation?” 

Michael considered her thoughtfully. “Did someone _ give _you the object?” 

“No one gave me any object,” Chloe replied. She’d received the blessing from Azrael, but she technically had never been given anything physical. She thought Lucifer might be proud of her deft navigation of the truth. “Who are the other two with you, the ones you didn’t name?”

_ “I will ask the questions,” _ Michael barked in a voice that resonated with bone-chilling ice. Chloe jumped ever so slightly at his words, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Ella give several full-body shudders in swift succession. “Where are you hiding the object? Your attire leaves little room to concealment.” His cold brown eyes scanned her body. 

Chloe wore sneakers, shorts, and a halter top, but the archangel’s gaze made her feel bare and exposed, helpless. _ Gross. _ Revulsion made her want to vomit on his shiny boots. 

“Like I said, I don’t have any holy objects or relics.” She turned out her empty pockets to support her point. However, doing so made her stomach drop in horrible realization. She didn’t have her phone! That was when she remembered that she had dropped it in Ella’s car.

Michael made an exhalation, a quiet expression of frustration. He then approach Chloe slowly, like a black panther bathed in gold. Chloe held her ground even when he stood directly before her, his gaze boring into hers.

The brown of his eyes turned to the shining white power of Creation. In his eyes, Chloe could see life and raw strength that it took to form something out of nothing and make it beautiful and holy, blessed and beloved by God. She could see the eons unraveling. 

The strength of him caught her for a moment, but he also reminded her of just about every other macho dickwad who had given her crap about Palmetto. So Chloe crossed her arms, narrowed her own eyes, and held his gaze. 

Michael blinked, and his eyes returned to normal.

“I see that witnessing divinity does not sway you,” he said with mild consternation.

“It does sway the other one,” said the blond male with a casual gesture in Ella’s direction. 

Michael turned his attention to where the young woman was tugging against the angel Rikbiel’s hold. He walked toward her with preternatural grace over the uneven rocks. Ella stared at him, eyes going wide and scared.

_ Shit, not good, _ Chloe thought and took a step to follow. However, the unnamed female angel, the one with the spear, stepped in front of her to bar her way. 

Michael took note of the tiny gold cross around Ella’s neck. “I see you belong to one of the faiths. That will make this easy.” The archangel unfurled his shining wings.

Ella’s mouth with slack on a high gasp, and her face lit up with ecstasy, like a drug addict scoring the sweetest hit imaginable. 

“Leave her alone!” Chloe shouted. 

Michael ignored her, his gaze focused on Ella, who was gently lowered to her knees by Rikbiel. The craggy rocks had to be abbrading her bare skin, but she didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she crawled forward on them to get closer to Michael, leaving behind skin and blood on the rocks. 

“Do you love the Lord your God, child of Eden?” Michael asked. 

_ “Yes,” _ Ella proclaimed, fervent in her adoration. 

“As you should,” Michael said with a patronizing smile for her, which he turned briefly toward Chloe. Then she realized that it wasn’t so much patronizing as smug.

Chloe shook her head slowly, her skin crawling with the wrongness of it all. 

Michael turned back to Ella, still with that mockery of a smile on his lips. 

“Tell me, what sort of holy relic does your friend, Chloe Decker of the LAPD, carry with her?” 

Ella shook her head slowly, her glazed-over eyes staring with longing at the archangel. “There is no relic.” 

“Preposterous!” Michael shouted, and the word echoed off the cliffs. Then, somehow, he turned up the notch on his very existence. His wings shimmered and sparked, and Ella began to sob uncontrollably. 

_ “Stop it!” _ Chloe shouted, and the echo of her voice chased his. Could religious ecstasy do permanent brain damage? She wasn’t willing to risk finding out. 

“I’m a miracle!” Chloe said. “I am a miracle of God, and Ella has nothing to do with it!” 

Michael’s gaze returned to her, and one brow arched. 

“Please, just put your wings away,” Chloe implored. “Let her go. I can tell you what you need to know.” 

Michael nodded, his face impassive once more, and he folded his wings away. Ella instantly sagged in relief, and she fell forward but caught herself with her palms against the rockface. 

“Hoot fucking hoot,” the latina whimpered as her tears made dark splashes against the stone. 

Chloe felt a shaky, hysterical laugh bubble up out of her chest. “Hoot hoot,” she called back.

Michael gave her a look that told her he thought she was mad, but he made no comment. He abandoned the prone human and returned to face Chloe. 

“You will explain the nature of the miracle to me,” Michael commanded.

Chloe grit her teeth against his insufferable tone. “My mother wasn’t able to get pregnant. But then one day, an angel came and blessed her so that she could have a child, me.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Ella starting to straighten back up and push to her feet, shakily gathering her wits about her once more. Her knees and shins were bleeding from where they’d scraped against rock. 

“And who was the angel who delivered the blessing?” Michael asked.

Chloe held back a flinch, but only barely. “Amenadiel.”

“The rogue?” asked the blond angel, incredulous. “He’s involved in this? Remy, you spoke with him recently. Is what this human says true?” 

The spear-wielding angel frowned and shook her head. “Amenadiel and I spoke only of his own child, not his involvement with this human’s conception.” 

_ “Amenadiel,” _ Michael said sharply, “has fallen prey to seduction and temptation. His excessive time spent on Earth consorting with the fallen one has clouded his judgment. Our brother’s weaknesses will be remedied in the fullness of time, in accordance with Father’s plan.”

“I have faith that you are right, Michael,” the woman, Remy, replied. “I will be glad when he comes at last to his senses. When we spoke, I could see how confused he had become by his experiences here, though he tried to deny it, claiming instead that he had grown strong.”

While the angels surrounding them spoke, Chloe caught Ella’s eyes and raised her eyebrows in a silent question. Ella gave a small, shaky nod that she was alright. 

“Indeed,” Michael said. “That is the way of the fallen one — to confuse rebellion with freedom, and weakness with strength.”

“The fallen one?” Chloe asked. 

_ C’mon, keep monologuing, you megalomaniac, _ she thought, grasping at straws. _ Give me something I can work with. _She had no idea what would happen or how the angels would react if they found out that she herself was the source of divinity that they sought. Given their attitudes, she didn’t want to give them the opportunity.

_ Does Ella still have her phone? _ she wondered. She surreptitiously glanced at Ella’s front pockets. One of them contained a bulge in the shape of a phone. Good. If they got the chance, they could use it.

“My lamentable brother, the rebel and outcast,” Michael replied, but he seemed disinclined to elaborate. 

“Michael, we should reconsider the possibility that Lucifer might have some involvement in this,” the blond male said. “Although he said he knew nothing, he is an agent of chaos and may have unwittingly set events in motion.”

_ You’re not wrong about the chaos, blondie, _Chloe thought with a mental wince. Then the meaning of his words registered, and her eyes widened. They’d spoken to Lucifer? When? Recently? 

“You give good counsel, Raphael,” Michael said with a thoughtful nod. “Tell me, Chloe Decker, do you know the one of whom we speak, Lucifer?” 

Distantly, she could hear Ella make a small noise that echoed the fear in Chloe’s gut. For a heartbeat, Chloe considered lying, but it would be useless. Lying in her current situation was liable to blow up in her face quickly and badly. 

“Yeah, most of LA knows Lucifer,” she said. “He’s kind of a big deal. He owns the most popular night club, dates all the hottest people, and he even works with the LAPD, so of course I know him.” She wanted to ask questions so badly and find out what Michael knew, but she’d already been given her warning about asking questions, and she knew without a doubt that it would be her _ only _warning. She just had to get in Michael’s head somehow. 

Then an idea came to her. “Lucifer’s gone missing lately, though,” she said, lacing the words with genuine regret that required no acting. “It’s a real shame. He solved a lot of tough cases and made sure that justice was served over and over.” 

“A _ shame?” _ Michael looked down at her as though she had suddenly sprouted warts and started croaking. 

Excellent. She nearly had him. 

“Yeah, a shame,” Chloe said. “He did a lot of good here, stood up for people who needed it. But from what I hear, he never stays in Hell for long.” She gave an artful shrug. 

_ And if I have anything to say about it, he won’t be there much longer, _ Chloe thought. 

Anger contorted Michael’s formerly stony face. “Indeed. He barely lasted a quarter of a century before he dragged his pathetic self to the doorway of the Silver City just before this fiasco began.”

_ What? Lucifer, what are you even doing? _Chloe’s brain nearly went offline at the new knowledge, but she couldn’t afford to hesitate. 

“The Devil at the gates of Heaven?” she said with a laugh. “Now that’s something I can’t picture happening. Ever.” Lucifer’s pride would never allow it, as far as Chloe could tell. 

“I used to think the same until I saw it for myself,” Michael said, and a satisfied, haughty smile overtook his anger. “Yet I shall forever remember the scene as it unfolded. For all his former pride, he didn’t seem to have much left to his name.” 

“I’m sure he must have had a reason for being here,” Chloe said, feigning indifference in her tone.

“His reasons matter nothing to me,” Michael said with a moue of distaste. “When he refused to grant assistance in the mortal realm, I ordered him to return to Hell. It’s the only place where one such as he truly belongs.” 

Buzzing rang inside Chloe’s mind. Memories thundered in her head like waves breaking on the California rocks. 

_ I’ve made a breakthrough. _

_ Really, what is it? _

_ I hate myself. _

_ Lucifer, you have to forgive yourself. _

_ I don’t know how, but I want to. _

Chloe Decker’s fist shot out and connected with Michael’s face before she could think to stop herself. Even if she had been able to make the decision logically, she still would have chosen to punch him. 

The archangel’s head whipped to one side with the force of the hit, though he neither staggered nor swayed.

“You do _ not _ get to decide that, to say that utterly poisonous _ bullshit _ about him!” Chloe ground out, pointing an accusing finger at him and feeling as though her heart were on fire. “After everything he’s been through, after how far he’s come, you do _ not _ get to look down on him and judge him like that. Because he’ll _ believe _ you —” Her voice broke, remembering how she had fallen prey to doubt and fear and how much harm she’d done. “He _ believes _ the horrible things other people say about him even when they’re stupid and _ wrong!” _

Michael slowly popped his neck and turned his head to face her once more.

“Michael,” Raphael said in quiet alarm. “Michael, you’re bleeding.” 

The dark-haired archangel’s brows twitched in momentary confusion. He drew his gloved hand to his nose and pulled away a smear of blood, staring at it before closing the hand into a fist. 

His eyes blazed white when he looked at Chloe again, and once more he unfurled his wings, arching them wide. 

“Angels can’t kill humans,” Michael said. “But you...you made me bleed, and that is something no human can do.”

Michael advanced on her slowly, but Chloe had little room to move. The cliff was behind her. Panicking, she whipped her eyes between the advancing archangel and the uneven surface beneath. She checked the footing of each step she took.

Could she fly without knowing how? Even birds had to learn before they could make the air their home. 

“Leave her alone!” Ella shouted.

“The game is over, little demon,” Michael said with a sneer. “All I need to do is take the relic from your corpse.” 

The archangel pulled back his mighty wings of gold and swept them forward in a powerful rush. The resulting gust slammed into Chloe’s body like a wall, hurling her off her feet and far over the edge of the cliff.

Ella’s scream of denial followed Chloe as she fell. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically speaking, this is _not actually_ a literal cliffhanger, because no one is hanging onto a cliff. 
> 
> I...realize that probably doesn't help. At all. 
> 
> ~~~
> 
> The scene here takes place at Echo Cliffs, and in case you're interested, here's a web page that has several great views of the scenery: [Click to see Echo Cliffs](http://www.intrepidlife.com/echo-cliffs/).
> 
> BIG shout out to [RootPatterson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RootPatterson) and [GlitchedMindy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitchedMindy) for a live session on Discord where they literally caught up from chapters 1-10 in ONE sitting while screaming at me about various things that happened in the story. (I, of course, screamed back.) I am eternally grateful to you both for that experience! 💖


	12. A Hard "No"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer, well aware of what his brother Michael is capable of, rushes to try to find the Detective.

Lucifer landed in the parking lot outside the El Sancho Loco Taqueria. An elderly couple who had been getting into their car stared at him. He waved with a small smile at them, and they scrambled into the car to make a hasty getaway, tires squealing. Lucifer sighed and put his wings away.

“Right,” he said, smoothing the lapels of his leather armor. He marched toward the door of the taqueria. 

However, just as he took a hold of the door handle, something caught his attention, a frisson of energy, a leftover trace of celestial power. 

There was no celestial entity there at that moment, but one had been there recently. Lucifer was certain of it. 

He followed the trace until it brought him to a particular parking spot, where a larger quantity of the residue lingered, faintly tickling at all of his senses. 

Chloe had purchased two meals here earlier. Traces of divine energy lingered. So Michael and company had found Chloe here and...what? Carried her off somewhere more a more private interrogation?

That certainly sounded like something Michael would do.

Lucifer’s only remaining lead, however, was the faint trail of celestial essence. 

“Fantastic, now I’m a ruddy bloodhound,” he grumbled. 

He pulled his wings back out and set off in haste. Lucifer flew high in the sky, but even from a distance he was able to track the divine residue that followed along the human roads at car level. He remained baffled as to what it meant for a celestial to travel by car, but he would just have to figure out those details later.

He followed the trail away from civilization and out into the park lands, eventually coming to small, craggy peak not far from a roadway. 

The site was utterly saturated in the same essence he’d been tracing. It covered the earth, rocks, trees, and animals like a film. The scent of it washed through his very core filled him with warmth, but the frightening thing was that he didn’t recognize it at all. With this much residual power to take in, he should have been able to name the owner of it without hesitation. 

“What the me is going _ on _around here?” he shouted, and the word here bounced across the valley below. 

He needed time to regroup, but his sense of urgency was rising. He leapt into the air and flew down into the valley, _ away _from the enticing, strong scent of power. Landing in the middle of the green valley atop a lone sandstone rock, Lucifer stopped, closed his eyes, and crossed his arms, focusing on all of the celestial senses he normally ignored, extending them outward in all directions. 

No sooner did he begin than he had what he needed. A massive concentration of celestial power drew his attention westward. 

Lucifer once again took to the air, straining his wings for speed. He flew low through the valley, eyes fixed ahead on his destination. 

Soon after, he could see figures in the distance, gathered at a cliffside. That was his target — he could tell that his siblings were there. Could Chloe be there as well? He wasn’t certain, but he held out hope. Lucifer put on an extra burst of speed.

As he drew closer, he saw a large flash of gold. He couldn’t make out faces from the great distance, but if the gold was Michael and he had his wings out, something was definitely going wrong up there. 

To his horror, he watched as his brother swept a giant wingload of air at another person who then went flying off the edge of the cliff. 

“Damn!” 

Lucifer again reached for the Light, and it was his, and he moved as fast as Light moved. He positioned himself halfway down the cliff below the falling person, arms out and ready to catch in midair.

The person turned as she fell, and it was Chloe. 

“BOLLOCKS!” 

_ “Lucifer?!” _

Then, before they could collide, Chloe sprouted wings, and they caught an updraft, lifting her up and away from him, carrying her out over the valley. Chloe screamed all the way, but she flew, or rather soared as one might when holding onto the handles of a hang glider. 

_ “Help! I can’t steer these things.” _ Chloe shouted over her shoulder. He couldn’t even see her face because her blasted wings were in the way. 

“Blooooody Hell!” Lucifer’s momentum was still carrying him forward, but he turned in the air and kicked off from the side of the cliff, leaving shoe prints in the rock as he hurtled himself like a missile at his bewinged Detective. 

He had to moderate his speed to match hers, and he flew up over her, aligning their bodies and trying to keep his wings out of the way of her own. 

“Just keep soaring!” he shouted over the wind. “You’re doing fine. I’m going to get a hold of you. All you have to do is let me take your weight. Okay?” 

“Okay! Yes, I got it!” 

Cautiously, he reached one arm downward around the front of her shoulders, and the other he slipped under her midsection. She grasped both of his wrists. He couldn’t take all of her weight, though, not with her wings in the way, and he couldn’t press their bodies together without interfering with the airflow over his own wings. 

“You have to put your wings away,” he yelled. 

“Are you _ crazy?” _ she yelled back. 

“In various regards, yes, but I know how to steer these things, as you put it, so _ trust _me! Do it on three. Count it down for me.” 

Chloe hesitated, but then an updraft caught them both, pushing them higher, wobbling them in the air, and causing her to shriek. Lucifer would have laughed at the undignified sound if the situation weren’t just as frightening for him. 

“One,” she finally said.

Lucifer clenched his fists in her shirt. 

“Two.” 

He took in a deep breath and stiffened his back.

“Three!” 

Chloe folded her wings in a rush, Lucifer yanked her back to his chest, and he flapped with all of his strength. The position was terribly disadvantageous, and it left her legs dangling because she had no more forward momentum of her own. Her legs flopped about, throwing off his balance.

“Curl your legs up!” he shouted, and she did, and suddenly it was easier. He simply had to carry a ball of a person with him. 

Lucifer angled himself and aimed for the ground of the valley. Moments later, he landed them safely — if clumsily — with Chloe set down first and him stumbling several feet away to avoid tripping over her. As soon as he had his footing, he turned around sharply to see her, trembling where she stood. They stared at each other, both of them panting and shaken….

….both of them hopeful and afraid to hope. 

Lucifer broke the silence. 

“What in blue blazes did you do to your _ hair?” _ he asked, outraged, staring at the short locks that barely reached her chin. 

She immediately gave him a look of disbelief, one that only she could ever achieve. “Really? _ That’s _what you’re going to lead with?” 

Lucifer blinked a couple of times. “No, that isn’t what I meant to lead with at all. Sorry. I got caught up in the excitement. Let me try again.” 

He dusted himself off and straightened his armor before approaching her, looking into her lovely blue eyes. They were just as he remembered them from so long ago, clear and bold and, most importantly, _ alive. _ She had burned brightly when he knew her before, and this new Chloe shone like his favorite star and smelled like forever.

_ Let me be with her, _ his heart had screamed from both Heaven and Hell. 

“Hello, Detective,” he said with a smile. 

She sucked in a quick breath. Her eyes swiftly filled with tears, and she launched herself at him, burying her delicate frame in his arms as deeply as she could. She tucked her face hard against his chest and clutched at his lower back beneath his wings.

Slowly, cautiously, he put one hand on the back of her head and pressed her close. The other he curled around her upper shoulders above the place where her wing pouches were located. 

_ Because she had bloody wings! _

Of course she did. He turned his back for a little too long, and his Dad started frolicking and having a jolly good time dicking around with his life and friends again.

Lucifer turned his face up to the clouds. He meant to glare up at the sky, but he feared his expression might have come off as merely bewildered. 

“Missed you, missed you,” she mumbled over and over into his chest.

Lucifer sighed helplessly. They could figure out the details later. First, however, they had matters to take care of, such as removing some heavenly pests. 

He nudged her gently to encourage her to let go a little so he could look at her. “As much as I’d like to simply stay like this for, oh, at least a century, I think I need a little more information about what’s going on before we have a chat with a few angels.” 

Chloe stiffened, and her eyes went wide. “Ella!” 

She seemed to have lost her mind. “Excuse me?” 

“Ella’s still up there. With your…” She struggled to find the right words. “With Michael and his flock.” 

It took Lucifer only a moment to put the pieces together — Ella going on a sudden vacation, two meals at the taqueria. “This just keeps getting better,” he said, heavy sarcasm coloring his words. “Best not to delay in that case, especially considering Michael’s in a royal snit. Come on, I’ll give you a lift the easy way this time.” 

Before Chloe could reply, he picked her up in a princess carry. She gave a squeak of protest but put one arm behind his neck without prompting, clutching his leathery lapel with her other hand. 

“This is the final call to board Devil Airways,” he said, wagging his eyebrows at her. 

“Lucifer, I hardly think now is the right time for joooookes!” 

Her final word turned into a shout as he took several running strides and leapt into the air. 

* * *

Chloe clung to Lucifer as he flew through the valley with her securely in his arms. 

She still couldn’t believe she had him back. But how?

“How are you even here?” she blurted out over the rushing wind. “What about the demons?” 

“All sorted,” he said, and relief washed over her for the umpteenth time that day, leaving her once again feeling drained. “I can explain later, but the long and short of it is that you’re well and truly stuck with me now.” 

She dug her fingers into the hard, dark leather of his strange suit. “Good.” 

Lucifer smiled tenderly at her before focusing once more on where he was flying.

A few moments later, he landed gracefully on the cliffside where the other angels and Ella were still standing. Chloe was grateful that he landed a good distance from the cliff’s edge. She didn’t particularly need to see the dropoff again and recall her recent, unplanned plummet. She felt certain there were going to be nightmares in her future. 

“There you are,” Lucifer said, setting her carefully on her feet. She stayed close to his side, eyeing the other angels warily.

Michael hailed them first. 

“You claimed that you didn’t know what was going on,” said the archangel. “Was that more of your dissembling?’

“Honestly, I _ still _don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve discovered it does appear to involve me after all,” Lucifer said, and Chloe watched as he scanned over the situation, taking it all in. 

Chloe could feel the change in his entire body when his gaze landed on Ella. The scientist appeared dazed and shaky, but she gave a tiny wave with the arm that wasn’t being held by Rikbiel. Her knees were a mess of blood and dirt. 

“Detective,” he said, his voice low and hard and meant only for her ears. “Why is Miss Lopez bleeding?” 

Chloe chewed her lip for a second before answering. “Michael used some divinity mojo on her. She — it was like she wasn’t even herself anymore.” 

The detective felt the temperature of the air around them increase. She looked at Lucifer’s profile as he stared straight forward. Fire lit in his eyes. 

“Be a good cherub and let go of my favorite forensic scientist,” Lucifer ordered the lesser angel. Rikbiel hesitated, looking to Michael, but that only spurred Lucifer to bellow, “NOW!” in a voice meant to quell demons. Rikbiel was visibly stunned by the sound of it and slackened her grip, which allowed Ella to yank free and dart over the rocks. 

Chloe opened her arms, and Ella came to her, clinging and shaking. 

“I was so scared,” the scientist cried. “I knew you had the wings but couldn’t fly, and I thought for sure you were gonna go splat and die or at least get all busted up and broken. Chloe, I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep it together! Michael did the thing, and I couldn’t —” 

“It’s okay, Ella, it’s okay! It’s not your fault _ at all,” _ Chloe soothed. “You did amazing.”

Beside them, Lucifer spared a quick glance for them but returned his gaze forward to watch the other angels. When he spoke again, his words were gentle. “Miss Lopez, I don’t think it could ever be enough, but I offer you my sincerest apologies. If I’d been a little more swift getting here, you wouldn’t have had to go through all this. I hope you’ll accept an IOU. A particularly _ big _one.” 

Ella sniffled and smiled weakly. “‘Kay. And nice wings. They don’t make my mind go melty like your brother’s.” 

Chloe cringed as the temperature went up a few more notches. Lucifer grimaced, his rage pouring off of him in waves of heat.

_By [ZeeArts](https://zeearts.tumblr.com/)_

Michael’s eyes hardened, and he took a few steps towards them.

Chloe needed to try to diffuse the situation as soon as possible. Gently, she peeled Ella off of her and encouraged her friend to stand behind her. 

“There’s no holy object or relic,” Chloe explained to Michael again, which gave him just enough pause to stop his approach. “It’s just me. I had another miracle, and now I’m _ this, _ whatever I am.”

Michael accepted that with little reaction. He said, “Then you will return with us to the Silver City. We will sort out this matter there.” 

“Rather not,” Chloe replied. “I’m staying here.” 

Something of the tension in Lucifer eased at that.

“You heard her, brother,” Lucifer said harshly. “That was a hard ‘no.’ Now bugger off.” 

“It wasn’t a request, _ brother, _ but an order. This is a heavenly concern now, and none of yours. Get thee to Hell, Satan!”

“I think not,” Lucifer snapped back. “Can’t have you disregarding _ free will _ and hurting my friends.”

“Friends?” Michael scoffed. “Are you deluding yourself? You have no such thing!” 

Raphael held up his hands in a gesture of peacemaking. “Perhaps we should calmly figure out a few more relevant facts before we do anything rash.” 

“Rash?” Lucifer asked with a snarl. “Do you mean something rash like Michael _ throwing the Detective off a bloody cliff?” _

_ Shit, _ Chloe thought, terrified that the angry words being thrown about would boil over into a brawl. No matter how strong Lucifer was, and even if Chloe could put up some token resistance, Ella would be helpless. They were badly outnumbered. 

Lucifer seemed to realize this, however. Even though she could tell he wanted to vent his frustration in direct combat, he kept himself in check and remained in front of her and Ella. He was like a lone lion defending his territory from a pack of hyenas, eager to rend any individual who dared to come too close.

Remiel spoke next. “She refused to cooperate and struck Michael, an angel of the Lord, causing him to bleed. His retaliation was justified. At the time, I assumed she was a demon before I saw her sprout wings.” 

“You call that_ justified?” _ Lucifer yelled, but then the fire suddenly went out of his eyes, and he turned to Chloe. “Wait, you struck Michael?” 

Chloe pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. “Yep. Right hook.” She made a circle gesture in front of her own nose. “Gave him a widdle nose bleed.” 

Hysteria and shock had definitely settled into her system for the long-term ride, Chloe decided. She was acting like Lucifer and making everything into a joke. 

Lucifer smiled with surprised delight, that same thrilled expression she had missed every day since he’d left. “Well done, Detective! I wish I could’ve seen it for myself.” His face, however, fell once more into anger, though more tempered. “I still don’t understand how attempted murder should have been the next course of action.” He rolled his leonine gaze back to his twin.

Michael held his brother’s stare only briefly before reluctantly nodding. “I see that my actions were perhaps hasty. There is quite a bit afoot here, likely with Father’s hand directly involved.” 

The feathers of Lucifer’s wings ruffled briefly before settling. “Oh, do you really think so? Good, so do I. Let’s call it a day then and go our separate ways.” 

“Not so fast, Lucifer,” Remiel said. “I think that Chloe Decker of the LAPD has more explaining to do.” 

Lucifer growled in frustration, but Chloe put a hand on his arm, and the growl changed to a grumble.

“What do you want to know?” Chloe asked Remiel directly, not wanting to even look at Michael.

“Exactly how did you come into your power?” the warrior asked. “You used to be human, didn’t you?”

Chloe swallowed her nerves. “Yeah, I used to be. But there was an incident. I got shot.” Beside her, Lucifer shuddered violently, and she pressed her hand on his arm more firmly. “Then I met Azrael, another angel. Do you know her?” 

Remiel gave her an impatient look. “Of course. She’s my sister. Go on.” 

“Right, okay, that’s helpful,” Chloe said. “Well, she offered me a blessing from, um, God? Your Father. Then I was alive again and started going through some pretty dramatic changes.” 

“Rapid onset angel puberty,” Ella chimed in. 

Chloe closed her eyes in resignation and shrugged helplessly. “Right, that’s it. We’ll just go with that.” 

“Then Chloe went all KABLAAM and caused an earthquake, not to mention the pillar of light,” Ella said excitedly. “And I’m pretty sure that’s it for all the changes, Chlo. You’re fully baked and ready to come out of the holy oven.” 

“Thanks, Ella. I know,” Chloe said. “Now shhh.” 

“Got it.” Ella nodded and shut her mouth tightly. 

Meanwhile, Lucifer was looking down at Chloe, and she could see a thousand stormy thoughts brewing in that sharp mind of his. Then he did something she didn’t expect: He put his hands together in prayer. 

A moment later, Azrael appeared next to Lucifer, causing Chloe to jump. The newly arrived angel took in the scene around her.

“Woah, what’s going on? This all seems kind of...tense.” She wrinkled her button nose in distaste before noticing her friend. “Oh, hey Ella.” 

“Hi, Ray-Ray,” Ella responded with a little smile that was halfway to a wince. 

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Let’s skip the chit chat, shall we? Azrael, did you give the Detective here a blessing from Father when she,” Lucifer stumbled but continued, “when she died?” 

“That detective?” she asked, pointing at Chloe. 

Lucifer’s eyes widened in consternation, the very picture of a big brother dealing with a pesky little sister. “Yes, Azrael, _ that _detective!”

“Yep! It didn’t do much more than bring her back to life, though. I was kind of disappointed. After waiting all that time to offer her the blessing, and after all that explaining I had to do, it wasn’t a very exciting miracle. And I’d been hanging onto it since before her soul was even formed!”

Azrael hesitated and then stiffly looked around at everyone present, really taking a moment to understand the situation. 

“Uh, guys? Did something exciting happen after all?” 

“You could say that,” Chloe muttered. At the same time, Ella pointed in an exaggerated manner at Chloe and nodded. 

“Did you get all that, Michael?” Lucifer asked loudly. “This is Dad’s funny business, like usual. The great plan is still on the rails, chugging along. So sod off!”

“Whether I stay or go is for me to decide,” Michael replied coldly, “so hold your tongue, Satan.” 

“If you guys are fighting again, I’m out of here,” Azrael said. “Smell ya later, and Ella, try not to get squished between these goons!” 

“Azrael, wait just a moment — ” Lucifer started, but he was too late. She spread her pale silver wings, flapped once, and disappeared from sight. “— and there she goes.”

“Wow,” Ella said. “Ray-Ray’s more of a chicken than Margaret.” 

“Death is aggressively pacifistic,” Lucifer quipped with a wry smile. 

“We aren’t finished here,” Michael said, glowering at them. 

“Oh yes we are, _ Mikey,” _ Lucifer said with a grin of savage pleasure. “You heard her. Dad _ chose _ for the Detective to be resurrected on the mortal plane. If He’d meant for her to be in Heaven when she went _ kablaam, _ as Miss Lopez so enthusiastically described it, all He had to do was let her in the front door.” 

It was not Michael who replied, however, but Remiel.

“That is enough for me,” she said firmly.

Raphael nodded. “And me as well.”

Michael’s nostrils flared, and Chloe could tell that the archangel was still raring for a fight. 

“Michael?” Remiel inquired. “Brother? This is Father’s will. It was you who chose to investigate, under no direct orders.” 

Michael rolled his eyes in a gesture so like Lucifer that it shocked Chloe. She would have previously said the siblings had nothing in common besides their physical appearance.

“We will withdraw,” Michael said, but Chloe could hear how much it pained him to say the words. “However, I plan to look into these developments further back at home.”

Lucifer leaned over and whispered to Chloe and Ella. “That’s code for ‘I’m going to attempt to get an audience with Father, but I know damn well He’s not going to explain Himself.’” 

Remiel arched an eyebrow, and Chloe wondered how sharp her hearing was. “Behave yourself, Lucifer.” 

“Of course, Remy, I always do! Oh, wait, did you mean behave m’self well or badly?” 

Remiel shook her head in disgust, unfurled her wings, and launched herself into the sky, shortly followed by Raphael, Rikbeil, and Tinnen. They disappeared as they flew straight upward. 

Michael, however, lingered behind. Chloe braced herself, afraid of what spite he might yet unleash.

“Why is it that everywhere I turn, you are always there? Why are you always defying me? Defying Father?” Michael asked. 

And for the first time, Chloe heard something in the archangel’s voice besides coldness or anger. She thought that it might be, just possibly, sadness. 

Lucifer must have sensed the change as well, because his posture shifted, his wings and shoulders lowering from where they’d been bunched up and poised for a fight. Beside her, Chloe could feel him searching for an explanation. 

“I am what I am,” Lucifer said plainly, sincerely. “And that which I truly desire, I fight for.” 

Michael took in Lucifer’s words but made neither verbal nor physical response. Eventually, he looked at Chloe, brown eyes filled with thoughtful appraisal. 

“We will meet again at some point.” 

With that said, Michael departed, following after his four siblings. 

Chloe hesitated, uncertain whether the situation was truly over. She took a few steps forward, away from Lucifer and Ella, and stared at the sky for any sign of life or angelic presence.

“Well,” Lucifer said at long last, breaking the silence. “That was, I believe, one of the more harrowing moments of my life. Belongs in the top ten at the very least.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s up there for me, too,” Ella said. “That car crash I was in is still number one on the charts, though.” 

Chloe murmured agreement and looked out across the valley. She felt vaguely certain that the original hiking trail she and Ella had been on was on the opposite side of the wide expanse of terrain. 

“Guys,” she said. “How are we going to get down?” 

Lucifer fluttered his wings with a cheeky grin. 

“Devil Airways is open for business.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael, get your sorry archangel ass back here and apologize to Ella!! 😠
> 
> ~~~
> 
> El Sancho Loco Taqueria is another of those real places that I sneaked into the story. Research for the win. You can see a pic of it here: [link](http://venturacountytaco.blogspot.com/2010/11/el-sancho-loco-taqueria-newbury-park.html).


	13. Devil's Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their cliffside showdown with a flock of angels, Chloe, Lucifer, and Ella head back to LA.

It took less time for Lucifer to make two trips to the car than it did for them to figure out who would take the wheel. Ella tried to argue that she was fine to drive, but Chloe and Lucifer both argued otherwise. After a few minutes of discussion and after getting some water and a trail bar into the scientist, she started getting the shakes and relented. 

Lucifer drove them back to the trailer while Chloe and Ella both rode in the back, with Ella glued to Chloe’s side and her head on the detective’s shoulder. After a few minutes, Chloe briefly disentangled herself to search for her phone, which she found under the front passenger seat. As soon as she settled again, Ella was back on her like Velcro.

Chloe had fifty-three text messages from an unknown caller ID. She had to scroll all the way back to the beginning to discover that it was Dan. After briefly skimming the texts, some of which were paragraphs long and rambling incoherently, she asked Lucifer about it.

“I may have taken Dan’s phone just before letting the celestial cat out of the bag for him,” Lucifer admitted, pulling said phone out of some hidden compartment in his strange armor. He wiggled the phone at her. “Had to make a pitstop at the precinct to figure out where you’d gotten to. Daniel isn’t half bad as a partner, though he obviously doesn’t reach the very high bar that you set.”

Chloe nodded distractedly. What was one more fire to put out? She just hoped Lucifer hadn’t flashed his wings in the middle of the bullpen, but she decided she would rather not ask just then, just in case he had. She wasn’t ready to deal with it. 

In her hands, her phone dinged with a new message. 

_ From Unknown Caller ID:   
_ _ Please, tell me ur alright, and tell me I was seeing things. _

Chloe sighed, entered the contact identification, and typed back.

_ To Dan:  
_ _ I’m fine. Had a bit of an incident, but everything’s fine now. You weren’t seeing things. Just keep it together until I can see you on Sunday, okay? It’s been a long day, and I can’t talk right now. _

_ From Dan:  
_ _ Okay, Sunday. Maybe I should go to church. _

Chloe sighed and debated about whether to warn him away from that idea. 

They arrived at the trailer about forty minutes later. Lucifer seemed somehow too large to fit in the space, as though his presence would overflow the small building, but he insisted on watching over them as they gathered their things. Then the three of them bundled into Ella’s little car in the same seating configuration to return to LA. 

It was a long and quiet ride. Ella fell asleep with her head in Chloe’s lap shortly after they got onto the freeway. Neither Chloe nor Lucifer had the energy or wits for conversation that consisted of anything more than directions. Chloe let her mind drift and tried to think of as little as possible. She alternated between watching the scenery and gazing at Lucifer’s profile to reassure herself that he was really there. 

Eventually they pulled up to Ella’s apartment and got her squared away with many reassurances that they could talk again soon, after some much-needed rest. 

“Wait, you two don’t have a car,” the scientist suddenly realized. “How are you two getting home?” 

“I could fly us,” Lucifer suggested. 

“Nope,” Chloe shook her head vehemently. “Big fat nope. I’m staying on the ground for the rest of the day.”

Chloe ordered an Uber instead, and she and Lucifer said their goodbyes to Ella when it arrived. 

“Let me know when you’re home safe!” the scientist insisted. 

“I’ll text you,” Chloe promised.

Chloe put her travel bags in the trunk and then joined Lucifer in the back seat of the SUV. 

The Uber driver, a gray-haired man with a wide moustache, smiled at them with all of his many crows’ feet on display. He didn’t even notice Lucifer’s outfit — the Devil was sitting directly behind him, mostly out of his direct view.

“Going to Lux, is it?” asked the driver. “It’s a little early to hit the bar, but I hope you kids have a fun evening.” 

Lucifer shot a grateful look at Chloe, and only then did she realize that they hadn’t discussed their destination. She had simply assumed they’d go together to Lux next. 

For the entire ride, they sat apart from each other. Chloe could feel each of the inches that separated them. She felt drawn to him like a magnet, and she clutched the seat to resist his pull. He was so close, but she feared that if she so much as touched his arm, she’d fall to pieces, and she didn’t want to do that in the back of a stranger’s car, with a stranger witnessing every moment and overhearing every word. 

So they continued to ride in silence, with stolen glances at each other. 

Eventually, Lucifer spoke. 

“But truly, why _ did _you decide to ravage your hair?” 

“You don’t like it?” She fiddled with the ends, letting them tickle her fingers. Lucifer ended up staring at the motion before he snapped himself out of it.

“Not in the slightest! I had _ plans _for those glorious locks of yours. You should grow it out at once!” 

Chloe smiled, thinking back to the vow she’d made the previous Saturday. Had that really happened only six days ago? It seemed like she’d lived a lifetime since then. 

“Good. I will,” she said. 

“You will?” Lucifer asked, surprised. “Lovely. How long will it take, do you think?”

“Mm, a few years probably.” 

Lucifer nodded thoughtfully, and they returned to silence as they both struggled to resist reaching out. 

“I cut it because I was mad at you,” Chloe said after a few minutes. 

“Oh?” He turned concerned, inquisitive brown eyes on her. “Understandably so, I would think.” 

“Maybe, maybe not,” she replied, wanting to meet him halfway. “But I’m not mad anymore. I realized all I wanted was to see you again. I just wanted to be with you, and I was mad that I couldn’t.” 

His eyes softened into something impossibly tender, and his smile was the sweetest she’d ever seen. “Well, I’d say that makes me a lucky Devil.” 

She clenched her hands so hard in the seat of the car that she heard stitches starting to pop. 

Eventually they reached the tower where Lux was located, and they each carried one of Chloe’s bags into the elevator. Chloe typed out a quick text to Ella and wasn’t at all surprised to receive no response. She hoped it meant Ella had already fallen asleep.

Lucifer stared at her for the whole ride up, as they leaned against opposite sides of the lift. There was nothing sexual in the gaze, only a need to see, to appreciate, as though to prove to himself that the moment was real.

Chloe braced herself for the questions to begin, but they never came. 

When the elevator dinged and they let themselves into the penthouse, Lucifer dropped the bag he was carrying to the floor and simply looked around the room. 

Chloe set down the bag she carried. “I thought it’d be best to put the dust covers out,” she explained, uncertain what else to say. 

He nodded mutely. Then suddenly, a flicker of annoyance crossed his face. 

Lucifer started to strip, pulling hurriedly at the strange leather armor he wore. He dropped the first piece to the floor with a dull thud and began to attack his undershirt. 

“Lucifer? What are you doing?” Chloe asked. 

“Darling, I have the filth of not one, not two or three, but _ four _different planes of existence on me, one of which is particularly nasty and caked onto my skin on in layers. I’m taking a shower immediately.” He paused, looking at her with clouded uncertainty. It was a testament to how thrown for a loop he was that he didn’t automatically make a salacious suggestion for her to join him.

Chloe smiled and waved at him in a shooing motion. “Go on. I’ll be here. I mean, it is _ my _place, after all, at least until I give it back to you.” 

His eyebrows shot up in surprise as though he’d forgotten that little tidbit. Then he grinned cheekily. “Very generous of you. Just...just so long as you don’t go anywhere.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him, at which point he nodded and began to stalk away, dropping bits of armor as he went. 

The sun was still in the sky, not yet beginning to set. Chloe didn’t even bother to move her bags, but she got out some comfortable, worn yoga pants and changed into them right there, next to the bar. Then on bare feet, she walked around the penthouse and attacked each of the dust covers, violently yanking them away from the beautiful furnishings they hid. When her brief tour of vengeance was complete, she gathered the covers in a heaping pile. With that task finished, she padded into the bedroom and curled up in Lucifer’s enormous bed, intending just to close her eyes for a few minutes as she listened to the sounds of him moving about the bathroom. 

She fell deeply asleep the instant her head touched the pillow.

* * *

Chloe woke sometime later, long after the sun had gone down. The glow from the backlit bar in the adjacent room and the twinkling city lights gave her just enough illumination to see. 

Warmth cradled her, and she knew she was safe. The detective lay on her back, with Lucifer’s cheek pressed against her shoulder, his left arm and leg both draped across her and holding her pressed to his body. He was shirtless, but she felt his silk pants on the leg he had used to pin her thighs.

Muzzy from sleep, she wasn’t certain at first what had woken her. Then she heard it — the faintest of whimpers came from Lucifer’s mouth. At the same time, his arm tensed around her, tightening every muscle briefly before relaxing again. A few seconds later, the process repeated. A nightmare had him in its grip. 

Carefully, she stroked one hand over his forearm where it lay across her stomach. Her other hand was trapped, pinned between their bodies, or else she would have run it across his hair. 

Her gentle touches didn’t quell the nightmare, though. Instead, it seemed to escalate, pulling louder sounds of distress from him. 

“Lucifer,” Chloe whispered. 

His head snapped up, and his eyes opened, two glowing embers in the darkness. 

“Hey, you’re okay,” she told him gently. “We’re at Lux. You’re home.” She turned in his arms to lie on her left side and face him so that she could put a hand on his cheek. Her thumb grazed back and forth across his stubble. 

The red embers smouldered and were quenched, the fires of Hell receding, and at last he relaxed, his head falling heavily on his pillow. Chloe continued to pet him soothingly across his face and shoulder, and he leaned into each touch as though wanting to soak it into his body.

“Wanna tell me about it?” Chloe asked. 

“Not especially,” he said. “It’d be like reliving it. Again.” 

Chloe made an understanding murmur. 

“Detective? Will you tell me what happened with Azrael and the blessing, and what came after? Nothing makes any sense.” 

Chloe’s fears rose up and took hold of her. She felt a powerful urge to take a leap off the balcony to test whether she might really be able to fly away. 

“I don’t want to upset you,” she whispered, pulling her hand back from petting him to clutch at her pillow. 

His left arm curled around her waist, preventing her from further retreat. 

“Chloe, I’ve just had a nightmare about being back in Hell and watching the loop of one Bob Hansen, and the shootout that happened in his dreary little store. I think you already know how that ends.” His words practically dripped with bitterness. “There is literally _ nothing _you could tell me that would be more upsetting than that.” 

Chloe took a few moments to process his words. She wouldn’t have wanted him to see that scene. However, that still didn’t allay her concerns.

“You aren’t going to try to push me away? Because of your Father?” 

“I assure you, there isn’t the slightest chance in Heaven or Hell of that ever happening again. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me...at least for as long as you’ll have me.” 

Chloe scooted closer to him. “Is that a Devil’s promise?” 

He put his large, warm hand on the side of her neck. “Chloe, I promise you that I will always fight to remain by your side, whether I have to subdue a host of demons, face down a flock of self-righteous sibs, or battle my own confounded insecurities to do it.”

Chloe put her hand over his and felt every tense muscle in her body go loose and boneless. All of the fears that had nipped at her heels, clawed at her heart, and stolen her hair in the past six months left her in that instant. 

“‘Kay,” she said around a lump in her throat. “Me too. Ditto. To all of that.” 

Lucifer’s smile in the dim light was everything she could possibly wish for. 

After a bit, he tapped his thumb against the side of her cheek, drawing her attention from his smile back to his eyes. 

“Now, about that blessing my vexing little sister had tucked away in her back pocket for you…?”

After that, the questions and answers came easily, rolling back and forth between them. Everything seemed simpler and more secret, safer, in the dark and quiet time of the night when most people slept soundly. It made dealing with various revelations somehow more subdued….

...for the most part.

“You didn’t even know what the blessing would do?!” Lucifer asked, aghast. “You basically signed a blank check to dear old Dad and said, ‘thy will be done’? Are you out of your mind?” 

Chloe pinched his side in retaliation. “I took a calculated risk. One option led me away — like, _ really _away — from you, and the other could lead anywhere. I thought it was worth a shot.”

Lucifer went very still at that. “You chose...me?” 

Chloe felt her brows wrinkle. “Kind of? I didn’t know that it would get me back to you for sure, so I don’t think I can say I chose you necessarily. And I wanted to see Trixie, too. I think, maybe, what I really chose was just hope. Hopefulness. A chance to try for something more.” 

“You will never cease to amaze me. Clever, brilliant Chloe Decker.” Then his eyes lit up unexpectedly as a thought occurred to him. “Oh! Speaking of Deckers, I’ve met your father by the way. He wanted me to send his love.” 

Chloe’s breath caught. “You met my dad?” 

“I did indeed! I had to make a visit at the heavenly doorway for just a bit. Officer Decker came out to say ‘howdy.’” Lucifer tilted his head to the side. “I may have hit on him. Just a little.” He held up his hand with his index finger and thumb held just barely apart.

“You _ hit on _ my _ dad?” _ At first she was outraged, but then the surrealism of it all caught up to her. Chloe’s old friend, hysteria, returned in full force. She couldn’t stop laughing for the next several minutes, and Lucifer’s befuddlement at her reaction only made her giggle harder. 

At last, when she calmed down, their ebb and flow of questions resumed. Although they continued to jump all over the timeline, they gradually pieced together a fairly clear sequence of events that occurred over the critical days, just as they did with any case. 

Eventually, though, the quiet whispers, the reassurances, and the dim lighting started to get to Chloe, and despite having slept for several hours, she grew tired again. Eventually she started yawning and could barely stop. 

Lucifer tapped her nose. “It’s time for good little angels to be asleep.” 

“M’not an angel,” Chloe protested with a pout and another jaw-popping yawn. “M’something else. Dunno what yet.” 

“We’ve time enough to figure that out later,” Lucifer whispered. “Good night, Chloe.” 

Chloe put an arm around him and cuddled close. “G’night, Lucifer. Don’t have any more nightmares, ‘kay?”

He kissed her forehead. “If I do, I’m certain you’ll save me from them,” he said, which made her smile. 

And Chloe drifted back to dreamland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would anyone like me to bump the story up to Explicit for the next chapter? 🤔
> 
> If not, that's okay. I could always just skip that and go straight to the epilogue if no one is interested....
> 
> 😏


	14. Devil in the Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Lucifer fought hard to get back to each other, and now they finally have a chance to reconnect as never before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very eager to head into the wrap-up for this fic, so, SURPRISE, early Chapter 14!

Lucifer woke when Chloe pulled away from him. He held onto her wrist before she could escape the bed. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she whispered. 

He cracked open his eyes to see her, bathed in the early morning light, smiling down at him. He tried to say something then, but it came out as a mumble, and he tugged at her arm in an attempt to draw her back down. 

She resisted, however. 

“I’m not going far,” she said while running her free hand softly over his hair. “It’s my turn for a shower.” He relaxed his grip, and she eased her hand through his.

Lucifer sighed and closed his eyes again as she climbed out of bed. He listened to her quietly rummaging about the penthouse, most likely fiddling with her luggage, before she slipped into his bathroom. 

Or rather,  _ her _ bathroom. 

Lucifer grinned and rubbed his face against his pillow, luxuriating in the soft and silky sheets. Despite the interruptions to his sleep the previous night, the rest he’d gotten had served him far better than sleeping in a stone chair. He ran a hand over the silk several times for no other reason than pure enjoyment. 

After a while though, he gave a yawn and pulled himself upright to sit at the edge of the bed. He stretched his arms high over his head and then let his wings out, extending them out to his sides one at a time to really make it count. 

Rising, he folded his wings away once more and strode into the main living room. At some point, Chloe must have removed the dust covers — his domain looked every inch just the way he’d left it, almost to a disorienting degree...aside from the armor littering the floor where he’d dropped it the previous night. On a whim, he thought of a random book in his collection and went to the bookshelf, finding it exactly where he remembered it being. On another shelf, his copy of  _ What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky _ sat atop the organized books, with the bookmark where he’d left it between the third and fourth story. He’d picked up the anthology on a whim and had never gotten to finish it. 

He set the book back in its place and decided that a little brekky was in order. He suddenly realized he hadn’t had anything to eat in...well, decades. Even though he didn’t strictly need to eat, he had always enjoyed the act just as much as wallowing in silk sheets. 

He found the kitchen to be clean as a whistle, but unfortunately, so too was the interior of the fridge. So something about his home  _ had  _ changed after all. 

“Damn,” he groused. 

“Why are you condemning the fridge to Hell?” Chloe asked, coming into the room, her short hair wet and dark from the shower. She wore a baby blue halter top and tight-fitting capri jeans.

A few seconds later, her expression let him know he was staring. 

“Ah, well,” he said, indicating the interior of the appliance. “I thought I’d fix something for us, but I’m sorely lacking in produce.” 

“Yeah, it had to be cleaned out for obvious reasons. Hmm, I’m not sure whether there’s anything in the cupboards, but we can check.”

Chloe walked past him, and the air that wafted with her steps carried the scent of herbal shampoo plus that divine something extra that clung to her and exuded from her pores. It woke something in him, another inclination that he had forced back into the farthest corner of his being along with his need for rest, food, and entertainment:  _ carnal desire. _

However, even as his brain and body began to catch up with the fact that he was truly home and no longer in Hell, along with all the possibilities that brought with it, the Detective turned her back to him and started poking around in his cupboards. His gaze inevitably landed on the bare skin of her upper back, which covered two distinctly nonhuman wing pouches. They would hardly be visible to the untrained eye. 

His Father played a long game indeed. 

“Lucifer, why do you have  _ fourteen  _ opened boxes of cereal? Whatever, I’m sure they’re all stale. You know, it’s Saturday. We could always go out to a farmer’s market for something if you want.” When he didn’t respond, she turned around, flashing concerned blue eyes at him. “Lucifer?” 

“Do you regret it?” he asked. “That my Father...changed you.” 

Her face did that cute scrunching thing he adored. 

“Regret? No, not really. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely weird, and it’s going to take a long, long time to adjust. But I can’t regret it.” Chloe pressed her lips together and shrugged. “I hoped for a second chance, and I got it. I just got more than I expected.” 

He thought of her as he’d last seen her before he left, her eyes bloodshot as she pleaded with him to stay.

He walked up to her and reached out his right hand to cup her cheek. 

“Would you grant me a second chance as well?” 

Smiling and clear-eyed, Chloe put her hand over his. “Of course. I love you, Lucifer.”

The words filled him to the brim, feeding his starved soul. 

“And I you, Chloe,” he said before leaning down to kiss her as he had a lifetime ago on the balcony. The kiss was so much sweeter without tears on her lips. 

When he pulled back just slightly, his fearless Detective had more to say. “And you should realize that there’s nowhere you can go now that I can’t follow. So you should just be a good Devil and  _ stay put. _ ” She patted his bare chest as one would a well-behaved canine.

A shocked laugh bubbled out of him. “And so I shall. Wouldn’t want it any other way.” 

“Good.” Then she pulled him back down into another kiss, this one decidedly less sweet and more needy. 

Lucifer hummed approvingly and brought his free hand up to her lower back to draw her closer. Her hands came up to rest warmly on his shoulder and hair, gripping at him, pulling him in. He could deny her nothing, least of all this. With the tip of his tongue, he teased at her barely parted lips, requesting access. She granted it, opening for him so sweetly that he tried to give another hum of appreciation, but it transformed into a growl of need. 

He moved both hands to her waist and began to steer her backwards, in search of a surface, any surface. He ended up pressing her full length back against the pantry door so that he could press himself against her, crowding in closely and burying his face in her neck. Her breasts pillowed against him, the soft fabric of her halter brushing against his bare chest and doing absolutely nothing to disguise the stiff peaks of her nipples. 

His own hardness rested against her lower belly, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He bent his knees just slightly and hoisted Chloe onto her toes, tucking his silk-clad groin against the apex of her thighs and giving a quick, short grind of his hips. 

The sharp, startled gasp that it drew out of her was the most beautiful music he’d ever heard. Her hand tightened in his hair. 

“Chloe,” he said, and the sound of it was much too far gone for such early stages. He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes, raising a hand to brush at her hair. 

“Lucifer, will you just take me to bed already?” Her words implored him, but then she gave a fiendish roll of her hips right back at him, causing both of them to gasp simultaneously.

“Right,” he said firmly. “Good plan.” He stepped back from her, and she stumbled forward, making it easy for him to dip down and pick her up in his arms. 

“Lucifer!” she said on a surprised laugh. She recovered quickly, though, putting her arms around his neck and kissing at his jawline. He steeled himself to resist her distractions and focused on carrying her out of the kitchen and toward the bedroom. As he walked with her in his arms, she reached behind her neck to tug at the string holding up the front of her halter. 

The thought of peeling the fabric down her front and finally getting his mouth on her perfect breasts made his mouth water. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled that he wanted to pay proper homage to her, to tease and jest and entice and seduce. She deserved no less, and he had dreamed of doing exactly that since he’d first met her. 

He discovered that in the hour of truth, he had neither the wit nor the patience to spare for such things. 

Lucifer climbed into his bed and set her down in the middle of it. Then, looking her in the eyes, he used one hooked finger to pull down the halter, baring her breasts to his gaze and his hungry mouth. Wasting no time, he cupped one in his hand, planting his other forearm beside her to brace himself as he bowed his head to take his first taste. Her hands sank into his hair, holding him close. He suckled greedily, moving lips and tongue and fingertips to savor her delicate skin, and it earned him a whine and his name spoken with reverence. 

He carefully slid one knee between her legs. At the same time that he gave an especially hard suck on her nipple, he tucked his thigh firmly against her center, giving her the freedom to use his leg however she might wish. 

Chloe keened hard and thrust herself against him, her thighs flexing around his own to lift herself up and increase the pressure. 

The sound and sight of her alight with lust set a fire in his veins, and he arched his back in pleasurable sympathy with her. 

He withdrew from her breast to observe her, flicking his thumb across her nipple in the meantime. She lay panting and flushed, biting her lip and looking at him with heavy-lidded eyes. He narrowed his own eyes and rubbed his thigh against her, challenging her to take more, to take her pleasure, and she did so on an open-mouthed gasp as she began to greedily rock her hips into him. Her hands moved to his shoulders, fingertips digging mindlessly into muscles. His cock throbbed where it pressed against her hip.

“Chloe,” he said, hoarse and worshipful. “Anything you need, darling. Anything you need. Let me give it all to you.” 

He bent his head to her other breast, as his fingers deftly teased the first, all the while looking upward to witness her every reaction. She did not disappoint in the slightest. Her mouth fell open on a long gasp, and she rocked her hips into him faster, giving herself over to the rush and the drive for completion. Her thighs squeezed against his leg in urgent rhythm, and he shifted his thigh in counterpoint, pulling more lovely noises from her and feeling her rapid heartbeat under his tongue. 

However, soon she started shaking her head from side to side, resisting. Between their legs, her thrusts began to stutter as she tried to slow down. Thwarted, Lucifer huffed around his mouthful and lashed at her nipple, pressing his leg forward to try to urge her higher. Chloe let out a whimper but took a firm hold of his hair, tugging him. 

“Lucifer, Lucifer, wait, slow down,” she said, out of breath but insistent. Groaning, he let himself be pushed away when she shoved at his chest. He rolled onto his side, applying a kiss to her shoulder as she panted. 

“Is something the matter?” he asked. “Just let me know, darling.”

“I just almost…” she said breathlessly. “I almost, y’know….”

Lucifer raised his brows. “Came?” 

Chloe swallowed, her breath gradually starting to slow. “Yes.” 

What was going through her head? He couldn’t begin to fathom it. “And that was a problem because…?” 

“We barely started! And I’m still dressed.” She looked down and then back at him again. “Mostly dressed.” 

Lucifer took a moment to look down as well, enjoying the view before refocusing on the conversation. “I hardly see why that’s a reason not to get off, especially for you. In fact, it was very much my intent. A little appetizer, so to speak.” 

Chloe chewed her lip, and he could practically see the uncertainties and that uncommon, oft-hidden shyness starting to creep up in her eyes.

In the past with other bedmates, whenever such a situation arose, Lucifer had an easy solution on hand: All he had to do was look into his bed partner’s eyes and draw out their hidden desire. Then he could proceed straight to fulfilling it. 

With Chloe, however, he didn’t have such a shortcut. In fact, he never had. 

He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. 

“Well then, will you tell me what you had in mind?” he asked softly.

She continued to chew her lip, still hesitating, and he leaned down once more to nuzzle at her shoulder, unable to help himself. He made a murmur of happiness as he did so, giving a lingering open-mouthed kiss to her skin. He swore to himself that he’d go as slowly and gently as she needed him to. 

Then something in her eyes shifted, chasing the shyness away. He had no idea what could have caused the change. 

She turned onto her side to face him and pressed herself against him, moving to put her mouth right next to his ear. Her lips caressed the shell of his ear as they moved.

“I always thought that the first time I came for you, we’d be a lot more naked, and there’d be a lot more penetration,” she whispered.

Her words sent a powerful full-bodied shudder all the way through him and a hot throb of arousal straight to his groin. He gritted his teeth around the groan that escaped him. So much for her brief bout with shyness. Suddenly her request was all he could think about, the idea of her silken warmth on his length, fluttering with orgasmic delight.

“Another excellent plan, Detective,” he complimented, and then he wrapped his arms around her upper body and pulled her up into a sitting position. He got his fingertips onto the top of the seam at the back of her halter, pulling it apart as effortlessly as tearing a sheet of paper. He threw the fabric aside. 

“Lucifer, my shirt!” she exclaimed with a shocked laugh. 

“I’ll buy you another,” he promised desperately, running his hands over her bare sides. “Buy you twenty. I quite like the look, actually.” Then he went for the button and zipper on her capris.

Chloe laughed again, this time with amusement. “Well, you’re not shredding my jeans, mister.” She pushed his hands away and undid the button and zipper, but the pants were much too tight to get out of easily. She gracefully slid out of the bed to stand at the foot of it. He followed right behind her, reluctant to lose direct contact with her for more than a few seconds. 

He kissed at her cheek and neck playfully. She giggled and tried to shove him away so she could finish getting undressed, but her eyes looked at him with hopeful expectation. Thrilled with her reaction, he made a game of it, trying to find out what would distract her, kissing all over her face and that wonderful, long neck of hers. As it turned out, simply kissing her gorgeous mouth worked wonders, and they ended up doing that for several minutes.

Eventually, Chloe pulled away with a gasp and a hand on the center of his chest to keep him at arm’s length. 

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, then removed her pants, taking the panties down with them. 

“Chloe,” he breathed out, taking her all in, but she wasn’t done yet. She reached for his silken pajama pants, and he helped her rid him of them, kicking them to the side. Her appreciative gaze sliding up and down his entire body made him want to preen and strut. 

“Come here,” he said, putting his hands on her lower back and arse to reel her in and feel her bare body against his own. 

He resumed his kisses, luxuriating and reveling in them between pauses to look at her pretty face and nude figure. However, something niggled at the back of his mind. Something was missing, he felt, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was...at least not until he ran a finger up her spine to make her shiver. That’s when it hit him. 

“Show me, Chloe,” he said directly into her mouth. “That’s not everything, is it? Show me all of you,” he pleaded. 

Dazed, drugged with pleasure and swamped with lust, his Detective’s brows knit together as she looked up at him. “Lucifer…” her gaze fell from his eyes back to his lips, which felt swollen and pulsed in time with his heartbeat. 

He took her beloved face in both of his hands and recaptured her gaze. “Darling.” 

Then he unfurled his wings, stretching them wide and putting himself fully on display for her. 

Chloe’s eyes widened as she looked him over with dazzled wonder. Then the meaning of his request finally sank in, and oh, could his Detective  _ blush. _ Seeing the red flush take over her cheeks and throat only served to further endear her to him. 

He’d seen her wings before, of course, but at the time there’d been a bit of a crisis situation at hand, and he desperately wanted another chance to see her revealed.

“Umm, okay, just…” she mumbled, and then with a little shimmy that did wonderful things with her breasts against his front, she opened her wings. 

They shone, like something pure and freshly made at the beginning of time, back when Heaven was still new. Whereas his feathers were disparate and sharply defined, each one pointed at the tip like a blade, hers blended together like silk, smooth and soft and rounded at every edge. The faint hint of stripes among the white undersides fascinated him. 

“Radiant,” he said softly. 

Her fingertips danced over his chest, drawing his attention. She gave him a small, happy smile. “If you keep looking at them like that, I’m going to get attached to them a lot quicker.” 

“As often as you’ll let me,” he swore.

Slowly, he folded his wings, though he didn’t put them away, merely settling them to his sides, and she mirrored him. Then he turned to stand with his back to the bed. He placed an arm low around her waist, and slowly drew her back onto the bed with him. She followed willingly, eagerly, crawling after him as he slid himself backwards, both of them adjusting their wings as necessary to accommodate their movements. 

Reaching the headboard, he turned her and placed her on her back, her lovely wings mostly folded but still so large that they spilled off the sides. Gently, with a smoothness that belied the fierce lust riding him, he brought her knees up and spread them, creating a space for him to kneel between them. Between her legs, wetness glistened beneath his gaze, and Chloe let out a little sound, one of both excitement and embarrassment. 

He brushed the backs of his fingers against her lower belly as he leaned forward to give her another comforting kiss, bracing himself on his other hand beside her head. She relaxed into the kiss instantly, reaching up to run her hands over his neck, his chest, his abdomen. Then she took the wrist of his hand that he was using to tease her belly and pushed it lower, between her legs. 

“Chloe,” he whispered, delighted at the feel of slickness on her folds. 

He was starting to get a good sense of her by then. It wasn’t her desires that left her blushing and hesitant — it was being seen, observed. And oh, how the idea of it made him flush with excitement. There were so many things he could do with her,  _ for  _ her, just by knowing that one little chink in her armor. 

That, however, would wait for thorough exploration later. He had much better things to do, such as sliding a finger through the wetness between Chloe’s thighs and into her hot body as she gasped against his smile. Her hips rocked up into his touch, and it felt so good on his finger that he shivered to think what it would feel like on his cock. Her hands clutched at his sides. 

“Good?” he asked quietly, searching her face. 

“More,” was her only response, accompanied by pleading eyes. 

He hummed assent and pulled out his finger, only to slide in again immediately with a second beside it. Her channel was snug, and he applied himself to coaxing her open as she soaked his hand. He must have hit something good, because her hips jerked upward again sharply, her knees pressing hard against his hips. He immediately set out to repeat the motion until she was bucking against him and moaning his name.

His mouth started to water again. He bent his head to take another quick swipe with his tongue along the peak of one breast. 

“Chloe,” he murmured, caressing her cheek with one hand as he stretched her with the other. “Chloe, perhaps you ought to let me have a little taste, hmm? Warm things up a bit, make everything nice and easy for you? And honestly, I can hardly wait to tuck in.” He put his mouth on her neck, sucking hard to demonstrate how eager he was and what he wanted to do to her. Then he looked into her eyes again. “Promise I’ll make it worth your while, love. C’mon, darling, won’t you make a deal?”

Chloe smiled and let out a little laugh, while still rolling her hips into his hand. “Are you actually trying to make a deal with me to let you eat me out?” 

He curled his fingers inside her, making her gasp.  _ “Yes,” _ he said, and the word ended in a hiss before he dove in to suck at her neck again. 

She dug the fingers of one hand into his hair and firmly pulled his head back so that she could give him a stern gaze — or at least as stern as she could manage when hazed over with pleasure. 

“Later, Lucifer,” she said, her voice husky. “And later, I’m going to suck you off so good and hard that you see stars.” He shuddered and thrust roughly against her thigh, unable to help himself. The hand in his hair eased up and stroked. “But right now, I want to make love with you.” 

Lucifer sucked in a breath. Behind him, his wings arched and mantled, showing themselves off again before he made a conscious decision to do so. She smiled up at him, and the sight of it felt like falling. 

Gently, he eased his hand from her, took a hold of himself, and aligned their bodies. He slid inside the tiniest bit and,  _ oh, _ snug fit indeed. She breathed deeply below him, and her wings lifted once only to thump back hard against the sheets. Her legs rose to wrap around his backside and encourage him forward, but he resisted, holding still at the shallow penetration even though it left his body aching in protest. 

“Just a little bit…” he said to himself more than her. Then he rubbed his thumb against his wet fingers before applying it to that delightful little button between her legs, which he’d been ignoring until that point. 

She let out a sharp gasp followed immediately by a high moan, and he slipped inside a little further, about halfway.

He grunted, resisting the urge to thrust the rest of the way. 

“Lucifer...I don’t know...why is it…” Her face scrunched in frustration and, to his dismay, a hint of discomfort. 

His gaze roamed over her belly. Long ago, he’d seen the silvery marks there that indicated her motherhood, but the skin had become smoothly toned once more. Other, less visible changes had undoubtedly also taken place during her transition. 

“Nothing to worry about, love,” he quietly assured her, circling his thumb on her clit again at the same time that he withdrew and gave a shallow thrust. He repeated the movements over and over, ruthlessly applying pressure and pleasure. She writhed beneath him, throbbing hotly around his body and trying to get closer. Her gasps started to get higher, needier, as he teased and tormented her at her core. She bucked wildly, desperate and teetering on the edge. 

“Lucifer,” she pleaded, with her eyes locked on his. 

He growled back and slid home, mantling his wings high as her legs locked around his arse and her silky wetness tightened and spasmed around his cock. She cried out in release, and he ground himself against her, thumb still on that precious nub and helping to push her through her orgasm relentlessly, encouraging it to last and last. The feel of her coming around his cock made him tremble, whetting his appetite for more. 

As the delightful sounds of her satisfaction gradually receded, he slowed the movements of his hand as well. She looked up at him with wonder, and in her eyes he saw something infinitely soft and welcoming.

“A promising start indeed,” he said, his voice sounding tight and harsh to his own ears. 

Her passage fluttered around him again, a rippling aftershock that caused him to thrust roughly up against her and eliciting a surprised gasp from her. Bloody Hell, where had his control got to? He felt everything so intensely, so much  _ more. _

He wasn’t sure whether it was a side effect of decades going without or simply the reality of being with someone he truly loved. 

Beneath him, Chloe laughed, and the vibrations of it communicated through her body and into his, resulting in another sloppy, inelegant thrust. 

“Maybe we chalk it up to a little of both?” she suggested, smiling up at him while looking disheveled and beautifully angelic. 

“Mm, said that aloud, did I?” he purred at her, or at least he tried to. It may have ended up sounding more shaky than he intended. 

Chloe smirked, leaned up to kiss his chin, and gave an absolutely lovely roll of her hips. He gasped once, and at that point, his brain simply stopped firing properly. His body took over, cooperating with hers as she rocked against him, setting up a hard and eager pace.

Words fell from his tongue, not all of them of Earthly origin, but all centered around praising her. He chased the fierce ache that gripped him with long thrusts into her welcoming body, but he needed more. She clutched at him, her nails raking through his hair and scraping against his lower back, egging him onward, encouraging his increasing fierceness with touches and whispers.

Even through his haze, however, he started to sense a change in her. Her wings began to tremble again, her gasps turning longer and rising higher.

Yes, yes, that was what he wanted, what he needed. He arched his back sharply, his wings flapping and thrashing for that little extra bit of power as he thrust. 

_ “Again,”  _ he demanded urgently. “You can come for me again, Chloe, I know you can.” 

She whimpered his name and writhed beneath him, her wings thumping repeatedly against the bed, straining for a release that seemed to be just out of her grasp. He grabbed her wings at their wrist joints and pinned them back down, pressing his chest on hers and caging her in, letting her really  _ feel  _ his strength, letting her know she’d chosen the strongest mate, all the while sharply increasing his thrusts...aching and yet trying to hold off for her...

She fell first with a sweet cry and a violent shudder, her body shivering and clutching at his cock, and he thrust home and followed directly behind, hollering with the rush of release that washed over his body. The pleasure didn’t relent easily for either of them, and he rode it out, carrying them both down by degrees as they slowed, like two feathers floating gently from the sky. His wings, losing their rigid tension and excitement, slackened and lowered to the bed, sprawling and spilling over to the floor. His feathers rasped against hers.

Eventually, he let go of her wings, trailing his hands over their silky softness. He put shaky forearms by her shoulders, trying to keep his weight off of her although all he wanted to do was collapse. 

When she opened her eyes, he found them full of peace and joy, so much so that he couldn’t keep from smiling and kissing her. She returned the kiss with a contented, giddy sound. 

“Detective?” he murmured. 

“Mmhm?” she mumbled back between kisses. 

“D’you know what? I forgot to freeze Hell over before you finally slept with me. And I’m sorry, darling, but I do  _ not  _ intend to fly back down just turn on the frost setting.” 

He absolutely deserved the pillow that connected with his head. 

* * *

Later, they lay tangled together, wings tucked away for convenience, hands roaming each other’s skin in irresistable, unrestrained curiosity. She lay mostly on top of him like a very large, golden panther, occasionally gracing him with a happy purr. 

Eventually, Lucifer gave voice to his musings. “I’ve been thinking, and I believe you might be stuck with me quite a bit longer than you ever planned. Something along the lines of an eternity longer.” One of his fingertips wandered over her left wing pouch. “It occurs to me that I ought to double-check that you know what you’re getting yourself into.” 

She groaned slightly, and her head gave a little negative twitch. “You don’t know that for sure.” 

He raised his eyebrows just slightly at her. Surely she’d noticed the missing scars from her skin. Could it be that she hadn’t noticed that the delicate lines by each of her eyes — the ones he’d witnessed slowly extending over the years — had disappeared? Couldn’t she feel that aging had suddenly stopped for her, even going so far as to back off a tad? 

He had certainly noticed. He could smell it on her, in the power that perfumed the air around her. 

“You know what they say about that river in Egypt, don’t you? What’s it called again?” 

She moaned helplessly and smashed her face against his chest, causing him to giggle.

“I will deal with processing one thing at a time,” she announced, face still buried in his pectoral muscles. “ _ One.  _ That particular item is  _ not  _ at the top of the list.” 

“Oh? And what is?” 

She lifted her face up to look at him again. “Basically yesterday. Like, the entire day. And then probably helping Ella. And then I need to get in touch with Linda because she can help Ella better than I can.”

“Don’t forget dear old Daniel,” Lucifer chimed in. 

“Shiiiiiit.” Chloe groaned and buried her face again. Her wings suddenly came out and wrapped around her, concealing her from his view and poking into him along their rigid edges.

Lucifer laughed at the sight of her, nothing but a ball of gold and gray feathers. “Darling, you can’t hide from me while cuddled up against me like a feline in heat. That isn’t very effective.” 

Grumbling, she lifted one wing to pout at him. Really, when would those warm, tingling rushes of joy to his heart stop happening? Being in love was terribly taxing.

He pushed her lifted wing out of the way so that it could relax and rest against the bed without obscuring his view. 

“So, as you said, one thing at a time,” he conceded. “Tell me, what’s on your mind about yesterday?”

“Basically, realizing that those people I met are your family, and sorting through everything they said, everything I learned. There isn’t really anything to talk about. I just need to think it through.” She shifted upward to put her head next to his. “But can I ask you questions as they come to mind?” 

“Of course,” he said. “Whatever you’d like to know. I’m an open book to you, as always.” 

Chloe brushed her fingers over his chin. “By the way? Seeing your face on someone else but without scruff? That was very strange.” 

Lucifer snorted a laugh, but then his smile faded into something more thoughtful. “You know I’ll never be like Michael — a perfect little angel, a soldier in the good fight, and an obedient rule enforcer.” 

Chloe made a distasteful face. “Don’t even go there. Look, I know which one is the evil twin, and it isn’t you. Besides, you’re exactly how I want you.” She smirked at him, and her hands started trailing down his front, over the various details of his physique.

“Oh? And how’s that?” he asked, intrigued. 

She gave him a quick, playful kiss on the lips. 

“Angel in the streets, Devil in the sheets.” She grinned and wagged her eyebrows at him.

He laughed, delighted with her, and she joined him. And when their laughter died down, he proved to her all over again just how much of a Devil he could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know at least some readers have already guessed at this punchline, but for those who didn't, I've been saving it this whole dang time!
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Epilogue coming up next. 😊


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a normal Sunday afternoon at the park with Trixie Espinoza.

Trixie Espinoza prided herself on being very skilled at observation. This skill came in handy in many ways. It helped her on math tests because she could identify trick questions, allowed her to select the freshest chocolate cake in any display case, and it made finding the weirdest bugs in the park super-easy. 

It also helped her identify suspicious people even when the little kids at the park didn’t notice anything unusual. 

Trixie stood in the wide, grassy field, holding a grasshopper between her cupped hands as she stared at a woman sitting on a bench. The woman didn’t talk to anyone, even though Jenny’s mom and dad sat on the bench beside her. They ignored the woman completely. The woman also didn’t look like a mom in Trixie’s opinion. She seemed shifty, and she kept looking Trixie’s way. 

Trixie looked over at her dad, where he sat under a tree. He was reading the Bible for some reason. He’d been acting strange since Friday, and beating him at video games had been even easier than usual. 

When Jenny’s mom and dad got up and took Jenny for a walk around the duck pond, Trixie let her grasshopper go and approached the woman, although she didn’t get too close. 

The woman’s eyes widened as Trixie approached her, but then she whipped her head forward and started to whistle. 

“Why are you wearing a cape?” Trixie asked. 

The woman kept whistling, but her eyes strayed to Trixie over and over. 

“Are you ignoring me?” Trixie asked. 

“Well, I’m trying to. You can see me? I thought I had that turned off.” 

Trixie laughed. “Of course I can see you! But I like your outfit,” Trixie said begrudgingly. “Especially your eye makeup.”

“Thank...you?”

“What are you doing here?” Trixie asked. “Do you have a kid? My mom and dad say it’s important to be suspicious of anyone who comes to a playground without a kid. They’re both cops, by the way.” She thought she’d slipped that detail about her parents in there pretty smoothly. 

The woman didn’t seem alarmed by the mention of law enforcement, however. She just shrugged. “They’re not wrong. Being suspicious in general tends to keep people alive longer.” 

That seemed like good advice to Trixie. 

“But I swear, I’m not going to trouble anyone,” the woman insisted. “I’ll be leaving soon. Gotta get back to work.”

“So why  _ are  _ you here?” Trixie persisted. 

“Just wanted to check on you,” she said. “There’s something I’m supposed to give you, but hopefully not for a very, very long time.” 

Just then, Trixie’s dad came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Trixie, honey, who are you talking to?” 

“This suspicious lady who…” Trixie turned to point at the woman in the cape, but she was gone. “Oh. Where’d she go?” 

“Well, I’m sorry to interrupt make-believe time, but your mom’s here, and I think she wants a hug.”

“Really?” Trixie beamed up at her dad, who gave her a lopsided smile back.

Then Trixie looked over to the parking lot, where she saw her mom approaching the field. She was accompanied by a tall man in a suit….

Trixie’s face lit up. 

“LUCIFER!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOOT HOOT to everybody who read all the way to the end! I am so blessed to have been able to share this with you. To those who commented and/or live-reacted, I’m doubly fortunate to get to hear your thoughts and feelings. 💕
> 
> Also, just as an FYI, I've commissioned some art illustrations for this story. The first of four illustrations has already been added into the text! For readers who finish now, my hope is the art will be a treat on a reread, and for those coming in fresh, the art will enhance the story from the start.
> 
> Also also, I have some ideas for side fics, so this might not be the last you see of this story. 😉 I have a separate one shot I want to do next, but I do plan to revisit AitS. 
> 
> Go out there and be shiny! 💖

**Author's Note:**

> My other Lucifer works, if you might be interested:  
[One for Fantasies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19457755) (one shot)  
[Let Me Do the Talking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20473196) (one shot)
> 
> And I'm [LuckyDragon10](https://luckydragon10.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


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